Introduction

Infant Communication

By:Martha Arterberry and Bill Wilson
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg, PA
arterber@gettysburg.edu

Introduction

Historically, young babies have been described by professionals as relatively inactive. Within the first few months of life, all they appear to do is sleep, eat, and cry. While infants do spend a vast majority of their time engaged in these activities, their vocalizations are an important form of communication. Infants' cries vary, and this variation can serve as an important communicative device, signally various states such as hunger, pleasure, or pain (Barr, Desilets, & Rotman, 1991; Wasz-Hockert et al, 1968).

The intent of cries isn't immediately obvious, and for most parents, the meaning of cries becomes clearer with experience caring for their baby (Wiesenfeld, Malatesta, & DeLoach, 1981). Also, babies make a characteristic cry at birth, named the birth cry. The purpose of this experiment is to explore the role of experience in the interpretation of cries. To begin, participants will be asked about their experience working with young children. Participants will then hear a selection of cries and asked to judge whether each cry is a birth, hunger, pleasure, or pain cry and indicate their confidence for each judgment.
« Return to Top»

Design

The independent variables are participant experience (parent, not parent) and cry type (birth, pain, pleasure, hunger). There are 4 examples of each type of cry, resulting in a total of 16 trials. Each cry sample is presented twice before participants are asked to make their judgment. The dependent variables are number of correct judgments and confidence.
« Return to Top»

Analysis

The data will be presented as the number of correct responses for each cry type and mean confidence of judgment for each type of cry. A 2 x 4 ANOVA with participant experience (parent, not parent) as a between subjects factor and cry type (birth, hunger, pleasure, pain) as a within subjects factor can be conducted on each dependent measure.

Child	Number Correct				Mean Confidence
Experience	Birth	Hunger	Pain	Pleasure	Birth	Hunger	Pain	Pleasure

« Return to Top»

References

Barr, R., Desilets, J., & Rotman, R. (1991). The normal crying curve: Hoops and hurdles. In B. Lester (Ed.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (pp. 65-76). New York: Plenum Press.

Wiesenfeld, A. Malatesta, C. & DeLoach, L. (1981). Differential parental response to familiar and unfamiliar infant distress signals. Infant Behavior and Development, 4, 281-295.

Wasz-Hockert, O., Lind, J., Vuorenkoski, V., Partanen, T., & Valanne, E. (1968). The infant cry: A spectrographic and auditory analysis. Clinics in Developmental Medicine, 29. London, England: Heinemann.
« Return to Top»