Babies show stronger brain response to their mothers’ voices

In a new JNeurosci paper, Sarah Jessen and colleagues, from the University of Lübeck, explored how infants track their mothers' voices compared to unfamiliar voices. The researchers also explored whether this vocal processing affects how babies process new faces. 

Brain recordings of babies around 7 months old showed that they were far more attuned to the voices of their mothers than strangers. Additionally, neural tracking of unfamiliar faces was stronger when babies heard a stranger's voice compared to their mother's voice at the same time. Whether a face was happy or fearful did not affect these observations. 

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that babies are quick to recognize their mothers' voices. Furthermore, maternal speech may influence social processing in babies as they look at unfamiliar faces. Speaking on future experimental plans, says Jessen, "It'd be interesting to see how other sensory modalities like a mother's smell or touch influence social processing in infants. How are babies combining sensory modalities to understand their social environment?"