Acoustic features and auditory perceptions of the cries of newborns with prenatal and perinatal complications.
This article describes 2 experiments which examine the relation between neonatal cry features and obstetric histories. Experiment 1 shows that 24 clinically healthy, normal newborns who may be at risk due to a high number of prenatal and perinatal complications can be distinguished from 24 low-complications infants by harmonic and durational features of the cry. High-complications infants required more stimulation to elicit the cry, had a longer latency to cry onset, a shorter first cry expiration, a higher cry pitch, and cried less in total time than low-complications infants. In experiment 2, naive adults rated the high-complications infant cries as more aversive, grating sick, urgent, distressing, piercing, discomforting, and arousing than low-complications infant crues. Factor analyses showed that although the low-complications infant cries were described along one dimension of discomfort, a second factor emerged conveying the "sick" nature of the sound of the cry of the high-complications infants. It was suggested that certain cry features may reflect the risk status of the infant.
D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003410:Cri-du-Chat Syndrome / Q000523:psychology; D003448:Crying; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007232:Infant, Newborn, Diseases / Q000523:psychology*; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D007744:Obstetric Labor Complications / Q000523:psychology*; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000523:psychology*; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011930:Reaction Time