The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music

When 6-month-old infants view (and hear) videotaped speech and singing by their own
mother, they exhibit longer visual fixations and greater reductions in body movement dur-
ing singing than during speaking episodes (see Figure 1.4).129,130These sung performances
have a hypnotic effect on infants, who remain glued to their mother’s image. Maternal
speaking is also engaging but not nearly as engaging as maternal singing.
There has been much discussion of maternal speech and singing as modulators of infant
arousal,12,52,108but the available research has focused largely on attention rather than arousal.
To explore the arousal consequences of maternal speech and singing, Shenfield, Trehub, and
Nakata^131 took saliva samples from 6-month-old infants before the onset of maternal speech
and singing (on different days) as well as 20 and 25 min later. As can be seen in Figure 1.5,
cortisol levels decreased systematically across the three sampling periods of the singing
condition. There was a similar decrease in cortisol levels 20 min after speaking onset, but this
decrease was not sustained at the 25-minute period (see Figure 1.5). Maternal music as a
means of optimizing infant mood or arousal parallels adolescents’and adults’use of music
for self-regulation.132,133It appears that some forms of music, maternal singing in
particular, modulate arousal level in healthy, nondistressed infants, as they do for distressed
newborns in intensive care units.^134 There are indications, moreover, that maternal singing is
a more effective regulator of arousal than is maternal speech.

    11

Initial fixation

Cumulative fixation

Cumulative fixation

with reduced body

movement

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

Singing Speech

Modality

Time (s)

Figure 1.4 Initial fixation, cumulative fixation, and cumulative fixation with minimal body movement as a func-
tion of maternal speech and singing. Error bars indicate standard errors.