enjoyment (Trehub and Kamenetsky,in preparation).Such judgments
revealed that infants “enjoy”lullabies more than adult songs or even play
songs.Adults also had some success in judging whether infants were lis-
tening to soothing or playful renditions of the same song (Trainor and
Rock 1997).Moreover,infants showed greater enjoyment for women’s
singing than for men’s (Trehub and Kamenetsky,in preparation).
Although it is tempting to attribute the apparent preference for
women’s singing over men’s to women’s higher-pitched voices,this inter-
pretation may be premature.Because mothers are the predominant
singers in the household (Trehub et al.1997),familiarity with their voices
could be responsible for such preferences.A preference for women’s
singing over higher-pitched children’s singing would implicate familiar-
ity;the reverse would implicate pitch level.In general,however,infants
prefer women’s singing over children’s singing (Trehub and Fellegi
1997).For infants with siblings,children’s singing is preferred despite the
greater familiarity of women’s voices.Perhaps pitch level is an impor-
tant determinant of infant preferences as long as other features of the
singing voice are not entirely unfamiliar.
To summarize what we know about infant song preferences,infants
prefer the most ubiquitous song form,the lullaby,the typical performer,
a woman,and the infant-directed performing style.If out-of-context audio
recordings such as these have measurable attentional and affective con-
sequences,and visual-gestural recordings have comparable consequences
(Masataka 1996,1998),one would expect the typical multimodal perfor-
mances of caregivers to have especially pronounced effects.
Despite the fact that mothers and other caregivers have no way of
knowing about the music perception skills of infants,it is remarkable that
they provide musical experiences for infants that are both accessible and
enjoyable.This musical agenda seems to be intuitively driven,as is the
expressive agenda in infant-directed speech (Papousˇek,Papousˇek,and
Bornstein 1985;Fernald 1992) and sign (Masataka 1992,1996,1998).
Aside from primary benefits for infants,such musical performances may
offer secondary benefits for singers.Music making in general and singing
in particular generate feelings of well-being (Merriam 1964;Keil 1979)
and foster identification between singer and audience (Booth 1981;Pan-
taleoni 1985).Moreover,the relative privacy of the caregiving context
provides a safe outlet for negative or ambivalent feelings,making it pos-
sible to say what might otherwise be unsayable (Bascom 1954;Finnegan
1977;Masuyama 1989;Trehub and Trainor 1998),such as the following
sung threats for noncompliant infants:Now the owls are looking at you,looking at you;
Saying,“Any crying child,Yellow-Eyes will eat him up”
(Curtis 1921:557)440 Sandra Trehub