Motherese

Paper Summary:

This paper proposes a study to test Anne Fernald's claim that infants respond more significantly to infant-directed speech, also known as motherese, than to adult-directed speech. The experiment also tests the claim that the infants will prefer motherese speech, even when the speakers are not their mothers. It examines the implications that the young infants' preference for motherese would confirm the importance of using it as a means of communication with infants in the pre-verbal stage. In the experiment 48 four-month-old infants, divided even into four groups, participate using two between-subject variables: the side of the presentation of motherese (left or right) and the sequence (motherese presented first or last). Given 15 trials, the infants are assessed based on the number of times they turned in the direction needed to produce motherese.

From the Paper:

"Previous research by Glenn and Cunningham (1983), Mehler and other researchers (1978) have shown that infants responded more significantly to their mothers speaking motherese than speaking in an adult conversational voice (cited in Fernald, 1985, p. 191). One of Fernald's conclusions from the study is that the infants' preference for motherese stems from the fact that they are innately predisposed to be comforted by sounds that are associated with their caretakers. This conclusion was confirmed by Fernald, Haith and Campos (1984). They found that the heartbeats of four-month-old infants slowed down significantly in response to motherese (cited in Fernald, 1985, p. 192)."

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