Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T15:12:02.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Challenging infant-directed singing as a credible signal of maternal attention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Sandra E. Trehub Open the ORCID record for Sandra E. Trehub [Opens in a new window]
Sandra E. Trehub*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ONL5L 1C6, Canada. sandra.trehub@utoronto.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I challenge Mehr et al.'s contention that ancestral mothers were reluctant to provide all the attention demanded by their infants. The societies in which music emerged likely involved foraging mothers who engaged in extensive infant carrying, feeding, and soothing. Accordingly, their singing was multimodal, its rhythms aligned with maternal movements, with arousal regulatory consequences for singers and listeners.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e117
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ayres, B. (1973). Effects of infant carrying practices on rhythm in music. Ethos 1, 381–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergeson, T. R., & Trehub, S. E. (2002). Absolute pitch and tempo in mothers' songs to infants. Psychological Science, 13, 72–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bornstein, M. H., Putnick, D. L., Rigo, P., Esposito, G., Swain, J. E., & … Venuti, P. (2017). Neurobiology of culturally common maternal responses to infant cry. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114, E9465–E9473.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, M. J. E. (1980). Lullaby. In Sadie, S. (Ed.), The new grove dictionary of music and musicians (pp. 313–314). Macmillan.Google Scholar
Cirelli, L.K., Jurewicz, Z.B., & Trehub, S. E. (2020). Effects of maternal singing style on mother-infant arousal and behavior. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32, 1213–1220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cirelli, L. K., & Trehub, S. E. (2020), Familiar songs reduce infant distress. Developmental Psychology, 56, 861–868.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Esposito, G., Yoshida, S., Ohnishi, R., Tsuneoka, Y., Rostagno, M., & … Kuroda, K. O. (2014). Infant calming responses during maternal carrying in humans and mice. Current Biology, 23, 739–745.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falk, D. (2004). Prelinguistic evolution in early hominins: Whence motherese? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 491–541.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Finnegan, R. H. (1977). Oral poetry: Its nature, significance, and social context. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hewlett, B. S., Lamb, M. E., Shannon, D., Leyendecker, B., & Schölmerich, A. (1998). Culture and early infancy among Central African foragers and farmers. Developmental Psychology, 34, 653–661.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Konner, M. J. (2010). The evolution of childhood: Relationships, emotion, mind. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Longhi, E. (2009). “Songese”: Maternal structuring of musical interaction with infants. Psychology of Music, 37, 195–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margulis, E. H. (2014). On repeat: How music plays the mind. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Masuyama, E. E. (1989). Desire and discontent in Japanese lullabies. Western Folklore, 48, 169–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merker, B., Morley, B., & Zuidema, (2015). Five fundamental constraints on theories of the origins of music. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 370, 20140095.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sakata, H. L. (1987). Hazara women in Afghanistan: Innovators and preservers of a musical tradition. In Koskoff, E. (Ed.), Women and music in cross-cultural perspective (pp. 85–95). Greenwood.Google Scholar
Trainor, L. J., Clark, E. D., Huntley, A., & Adams, B. A. (1997). The acoustic basis of preferences for infant-directed singing. Infant Behavior and Development, 20, 383–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trehub, S. E., Plantinga, J., & Russo, F. A. (2016). Maternal vocal interactions with infants: Reciprocal visual influences. Social Development, 25, 665–683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unyk, A. M., Trehub, S. E., Trainor, L. J., & Schellenberg, E. G. (1992). Lullabies and simplicity: A cross-cultural perspective. Psychology of Music, 20, 15–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar