THE MEMORY OF THE NEWBORN BABY

In a pilot study 28 new-born babies (average age about 38 hours) were investigated to see whether they could already recognise their mother' s voice and other sounds to which they had been exposed before birth. More than half of the babies who could be observed while awake did ind eed appear to pay special attention to their mother's voice, but not t o any other woman's voice, nor to a lullaby which the mother had playe d to them regularly in late pregnancy. Most of the new-born babies, wh o had been regularly exposed to an alarming noise in late pregnancy, w ere not startled by such a noise, either when sleeping or awake. In co ntrast, all the neonates without such previous exposure did show a sta rtled reaction to the alarming noise.