Perceptual responses to infant crying: identification of cry types

This report describes a perceptual study on the ability of mothers to perceptually differentiate cry samples elicited by three different stimulus situations. In some instances mothers were evaluating cries produced by their own infant; in other cases they judged those produced by infants with whom they were unfamiliar. The results of the investigation indicated that the eighteen mothers were generally unable to successfully match the cry samples with the three cry-evoking situations. Further, no differential advantage was found when mothers were judging samples produced by their own infant.