Wood R M, Gustafson G E
Psychology Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06269-1020, USA.
Child Dev. 2001 Sep-Oct;72(5):1287-300. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00348.
These studies assessed adults' latencies to signal that they would respond to infant crying as functions of (1) the degree of infant distress they perceived in the cry, and (2) contextual information relevant to caregiving. In the first study (N = 34), listeners waited longer to respond to cries that they had earlier rated as sounding less distressed than when they heard cries of higher distress. Further, those who had been told that the infant needed sleep waited longer to respond than those without this information. This effect of context information, however, was limited to the latencies; in another study (N = 50), listeners' ratings of distress were not affected. Several acoustic features of the cries correlated with distress ratings and with latencies to signal a caregiving response. Taken together, the results suggest that adults' responses to crying are influenced both by acoustic gradations in the cry itself and by the caregiving context. Ratings of degree of distress manifest in the cry, in other words, may be highly predictive of caregiving behavior but not wholly so. Finally, although certain acoustic variations related to greater perceived distress and speed of response, differences were apparent between infants in the magnitude of these variations. The implication that the general process of cry perception may be calibrated, or fine tuned, to the range of acoustic variation provided by individual infants is discussed.
这些研究评估了成年人对婴儿哭声做出回应的延迟时间，该延迟时间是以下因素的函数：（1）他们从哭声中察觉到的婴儿痛苦程度；（2）与照顾行为相关的情境信息。在第一项研究（N = 34）中，相较于听到痛苦程度较高的哭声，听众对他们之前评定为痛苦程度较低的哭声做出回应的等待时间更长。此外，那些被告知婴儿需要睡眠的人比未得到此信息的人等待回应的时间更长。然而，情境信息的这种影响仅限于延迟时间；在另一项研究（N = 50）中，听众对痛苦程度的评定并未受到影响。哭声的几个声学特征与痛苦评定以及发出照顾回应信号的延迟时间相关。综合来看，结果表明成年人对哭声的反应既受哭声本身的声学渐变影响，也受照顾情境影响。换句话说，哭声中所体现的痛苦程度评定可能对照顾行为具有高度预测性，但并非完全如此。最后，尽管某些声学变化与更高的感知痛苦程度和反应速度相关，但不同婴儿在这些变化的程度上存在明显差异。文中讨论了哭声感知的一般过程可能会根据各个婴儿所提供的声学变化范围进行校准或微调这一观点。
