Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 500 S State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Department of Psychology, Smith College, 10 Elm Street, Northampton, MA 01063, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2021 Dec 20;376(1840):20210089. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0089. Epub 2021 Nov 1.
Music is universally prevalent in human society and is a salient component of the lives of young families. Here, we studied the frequency of singing and playing recorded music in the home using surveys of parents with infants ( = 945). We found that most parents sing to their infant on a daily basis and the frequency of infant-directed singing is unrelated to parents' income or ethnicity. Two reliable individual differences emerged, however: (i) fathers sing less than mothers and (ii) as infants grow older, parents sing less. Moreover, the latter effect of child age was specific to singing and was not reflected in reports of the frequency of playing recorded music. Last, we meta-analysed reports of the frequency of infant-directed singing and found little change in its frequency over the past 30 years, despite substantial changes in the technological environment in the home. These findings, consistent with theories of the psychological functions of music, in general, and infant-directed singing, in particular, demonstrate the everyday nature of music in infancy. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part I)'.
音乐在人类社会中普遍存在，是年轻家庭生活的重要组成部分。在这里，我们通过对有婴儿的父母（=945）进行调查，研究了家庭中唱歌和播放录制音乐的频率。我们发现，大多数父母每天都会对着婴儿唱歌，而父母对着婴儿唱歌的频率与他们的收入或种族无关。然而，有两个可靠的个体差异出现：（i）父亲比母亲唱得少，（ii）随着婴儿年龄的增长，父母唱得越来越少。此外，儿童年龄的后一种影响仅针对唱歌，而不会反映在播放录制音乐频率的报告中。最后，我们对婴儿定向唱歌频率的报告进行了荟萃分析，尽管家庭技术环境发生了巨大变化，但在过去 30 年中，其频率几乎没有变化。这些发现与音乐的一般心理功能理论，特别是婴儿定向唱歌理论一致，证明了音乐在婴儿期的日常性质。本文是主题为“声音调制：从起源和机制到社会影响（第一部分）”的一部分。
