Melody complexity of infants’ cry and non-cry vocalisations increases across the first six months

Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-258669
  • In early infancy, melody provides the most salient prosodic element for language acquisition and there is huge evidence for infants’ precocious aptitudes for musical and speech melody perception. Yet, a lack of knowledge remains with respect to melody patterns of infants’ vocalisations. In a search for developmental regularities of cry and non-cry vocalisations and for building blocks of prosody (intonation) over the first 6 months of life, more than 67,500 melodies (fundamental frequency contours) of 277 healthy infants from monolingual GermanIn early infancy, melody provides the most salient prosodic element for language acquisition and there is huge evidence for infants’ precocious aptitudes for musical and speech melody perception. Yet, a lack of knowledge remains with respect to melody patterns of infants’ vocalisations. In a search for developmental regularities of cry and non-cry vocalisations and for building blocks of prosody (intonation) over the first 6 months of life, more than 67,500 melodies (fundamental frequency contours) of 277 healthy infants from monolingual German families were quantitatively analysed. Based on objective criteria, vocalisations with well-identifiable melodies were grouped into those exhibiting a simple (single-arc) or complex (multiple-arc) melody pattern. Longitudinal analysis using fractional polynomial multi-level mixed effects logistic regression models were applied to these patterns. A significant age (but not sex) dependent developmental pattern towards more complexity was demonstrated in both vocalisation types over the observation period. The theoretical concept of melody development (MD-Model) contends that melody complexification is an important building block on the path towards language. Recognition of this developmental process will considerably improve not only our understanding of early preparatory processes for language acquisition, but most importantly also allow for the creation of clinically robust risk markers for developmental language disorders.show moreshow less

Download full text files

Export metadata

Additional Services

Share in Twitter Search Google Scholar Statistics
Metadaten
Author: Kathleen Wermke, Michael P. Robb, Philip J. Schulter
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-258669
Document Type:Journal article
Faculties:Medizinische Fakultät / Poliklinik für Kieferorthopädie
Language:English
Parent Title (English):Scientific Reports
ISSN:2045-2322
Year of Completion:2021
Volume:11
Issue:1
Article Number:4137
Source:Scientific Reports (2021) 11:1, 4137 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83564-8
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83564-8
Dewey Decimal Classification:6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
Tag:evolution; fundamental frequency variation; intonation; language acquisition; newborn infants; perception; preterm; psychology; speech discrimination; term patterns
Release Date:2022/03/18
Collections:Open-Access-Publikationsfonds / Förderzeitraum 2021
Licence (German):License LogoCC BY: Creative-Commons-Lizenz: Namensnennung 4.0 International