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Musical affect regulation in infancy
Author(s) -
Trehub Sandra E.,
Ghazban Niusha,
Corbeil Mariève
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/nyas.12622
Subject(s) - affect (linguistics) , singing , distraction , active listening , psychology , arousal , distress , affect regulation , developmental psychology , musical , cognitive psychology , communication , social psychology , clinical psychology , attachment theory , art , management , economics , visual arts
Adolescents and adults commonly use music for various forms of affect regulation, including relaxation, revitalization, distraction, and elicitation of pleasant memories. Mothers throughout the world also sing to their infants, with affect regulation as the principal goal. To date, the study of maternal singing has focused largely on its acoustic features and its consequences for infant attention. We describe recent laboratory research that explores the consequences of singing for infant affect regulation. Such work reveals that listening to recordings of play songs can maintain 6‐ to 9‐month‐old infants in a relatively contented or neutral state considerably longer than recordings of infant‐directed or adult‐directed speech. When 10‐month‐old infants fuss or cry and are highly aroused, mothers’ multimodal singing is more effective than maternal speech at inducing recovery from such distress. Moreover, play songs are more effective than lullabies at reducing arousal in Western infants. We explore the implications of these findings along with possible practical applications.