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Psychology of Music
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Maternal Singing Modulates Infant Arousal

Tali Shenfield

University of Toronto

Sandra E. Trehub

University of Toronto, sandra.trehub{at}utoronto.ca

Takayuki Nakata

University of Toronto

We examined the effect of maternal singing on the arousal levels of healthy, non-distressed infants. Mothers sang to their 6-month-old infants for 10 minutes, after which they continued interacting for another 10 minutes. To estimate infant arousal, we gathered saliva samples from infants immediately before the mothers began singing and 20 minutes later. Laboratory analyses of the saliva samples revealed that salivary cortisol levels converged from baseline to post-test periods. Specifically, infants with lower baseline levels exhibited modest cortisol increases in response to maternal singing; those with higher baseline levels exhibited modest reductions. This convergence of arousal levels was confirmed by reduced variability in cortisol values from baseline to post-test. These findings are consistent with the view that maternal singing modulates the arousal of prelinguistic infants.

Key Words: cortisol • infants • mothers • songs

Psychology of Music, Vol. 31, No. 4, 365-375 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/03057356030314002
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Home page
 Journal of Research in Music EducationHome page
B. Ilari and M. Sundara
Music Listening Preferences in Early Life: Infants' Responses to Accompanied Versus Unaccompanied Singing
Journal of Research in Music Education, January 1, 2009; 56(4): 357 - 369.
[Abstract] [PDF]