Infants' Responsiveness to Fathers' Singing

Fathers were recorded singing a song once to their infants and once in the absence of their infants. Adults readily identified fathers' infant-directed renditions and rated them as more rhythmic, loving, and appropriate for infants than the infant-absent renditions. Unlike mothers, however, fat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Music perception 2001-06, Vol.18 (4), p.409-425
Main Authors: O'Neill, Colleen T., Trainor, Laurel J., Trehub, Sandra E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
(ML) Music (General)
Analysis
Babies
Baby talk
Child care
Developmental psychology
Experimentation
Fathers
Infants
Listening
Lullabies
Men
Mothers
Music Perception
Pitch (Acoustics)
Research Article
Singing
Singing Styles
Songs
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Summary:Fathers were recorded singing a song once to their infants and once in the absence of their infants. Adults readily identified fathers' infant-directed renditions and rated them as more rhythmic, loving, and appropriate for infants than the infant-absent renditions. Unlike mothers, however, fathers did not consistently raise the pitch of their infant-directed versions. Moreover,infants showed no preference for infant-directed over infant-absent versions unless the infant-directed versions were higher in pitch. Nevertheless, infants showed greater visual attention when listening to fathers' singing than to mothers' singing. The results confirm that a distinctive infant-directed style is used by singing fathers as well as mothers, that pitch height is a salient dimension of songs for infant listeners, and that fathers' singing in general is highly engaging to infant listeners.
ISSN:0730-7829
1533-8312
DOI:10.1525/mp.2001.18.4.409