Evidence for a Caregiving Instinct: Rapid Differentiation of Infant from Adult Vocalizations Using Magnetoencephalography

Crying is the most salient vocal signal of distress. The cries of a newborn infant alert adult listeners and often elicit caregiving behavior. For the parent, rapid responding to an infant in distress is an adaptive behavior, functioning to ensure offspring survival. The ability to react rapidly req...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2016-03, Vol.26 (3), p.1309-1321
Main Authors: Young, Katherine S, Parsons, Christine E, Jegindoe Elmholdt, Else-Marie, Woolrich, Mark W, van Hartevelt, Tim J, Stevner, Angus B A, Stein, Alan, Kringelbach, Morten L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Auditory Perception - physiology
Awareness - physiology
Brain - physiology
Caregivers - psychology
Crying - psychology
Evoked Potentials
Female
Humans
Infant
Magnetoencephalography
Male
Neuropsychological Tests
Original
Pattern Recognition, Physiological - physiology
Time
Young Adult
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Summary:Crying is the most salient vocal signal of distress. The cries of a newborn infant alert adult listeners and often elicit caregiving behavior. For the parent, rapid responding to an infant in distress is an adaptive behavior, functioning to ensure offspring survival. The ability to react rapidly requires quick recognition and evaluation of stimuli followed by a co-ordinated motor response. Previous neuroimaging research has demonstrated early specialized activity in response to infant faces. Using magnetoencephalography, we found similarly early (100-200 ms) differences in neural responses to infant and adult cry vocalizations in auditory, emotional, and motor cortical brain regions. We propose that this early differential activity may help to rapidly identify infant cries and engage affective and motor neural circuitry to promote adaptive behavioral responding, before conscious awareness. These differences were observed in adults who were not parents, perhaps indicative of a universal brain-based "caregiving instinct."
ISSN:1047-3211
1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhv306