LISTENER AND CONTEXT DEPENDENCY IN THE PERCEPTION OF EMOTIONAL ASPECTS OF INFANT VOICE

Developmental aspects of an infant's ability to express emotions throu gh vocalizations were studied based on perceptual rating experiments a gainst 12 vocalization- and emotion-related reference words. Three gro ups of listeners, students, mothers with infants, and nursery governes ses, rated 28 voice samples recorded from a male infant at 6, 9, 12 an d 17 months of age, under a positive or negative context. Among three factors extracted by a factor analysis, one representing the emotional contrast of frightened/angry versus happy was found to be independent of listener group, infant age and context. The other two, one represe nting contrast between pleased/happy versus demanding/sad and the othe r seeking affection and rejecting/angry were dependent on infant age a nd context. These results may indicate that infants even at 6 months o f age can express the emotional contrast of 'pleasure' versus 'discomf ort' through vocalization, which listeners perceive independently in c ontext.