Project description
Infant-directed singing crucial for establishing social bonds
Caregivers employ stereotyped infant-directed (ID) speech and singing, characterised by modified acoustic features, to engage with infants who have immature cognitive abilities at birth. This form of vocalisation plays a crucial role in establishing social and affective bonds. Recent research indicates that the rhythm of ID singing serves as an effective cue for infants to attend to emotionally and socially relevant content. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the MusicalSpeech project examines acoustic adaptations in infants’ speech and songs across diverse cultures, tracing the evolution of these markers and investigating whether rhythm in ID speech captures attention. The project uses audiovisual recordings, state-of-the-art eye-tracking measures on Canadian and Spanish infants, and EEG to gauge neural encoding of rhythm, contributing to both basic and applied fields of study.
Objective
Given the immature cognitive abilities of infants at birth, caregivers connect with them by producing stereotyped infant-directed (ID) forms of speech and songs in which the acoustic features are modified. Although ID vocalisations are fundamental for establishing social and affective bonds, key aspects of infant–caregiver interactions are still poorly understood. One of the goals of the Musical Speech project is to identify distinctive acoustic adaptations of ID speech and songs by implementing machine learning models to cross-culture recordings from diverse societies, and track the evolution of those acoustic markers over the first year of life. In addition, recent evidence shows that the rhythm of ID singing acts as an effective cue for infants to attend to emotionally and socially-relevant content, such that infants look more to the caregiver’s eyes during on-beat moments of the songs. This project aims to determine whether rhythm in ID speaking similarly attunes infants’ attention and whether ID speech elicits distinctive patterns of attention before and after 6 months (as it serves more of a linguistic purpose). Using audiovisual recordings of adults speaking/singing to infants, this project will implement cutting-edge eye-tracking measures to samples of Canadian and Spanish infants. Finally, prematurity and individual differences in neural coding of rhythm, measured with a state-of-the-art EEG paradigm, can affect early interactions. Thus, the eye-tracking outcomes of terms and an additional sample of preterms will be correlated with the EEG signal elicited by rhythmic stimuli. The cross-laboratory studies proposed in this innovative project will comprise training on advanced statistical techniques and leadership, as they rely on the coordination of an international network. The project can contribute to basic and applied fields with unprecedented, high-quality insights and an experimental paradigm shift to compare early language and music perception.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global FellowshipsCoordinator
18071 Granada
Spain