bySociety for Neuroscience

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

In a newJNeuroscipaper, 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 ofbabiesaround 7 months old showed that they were far more attuned to the voices of their mothers thanstrangers. 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, Jessen says, "It'd be interesting to see how other sensory modalities like a mother's smell or touch influence social processing ininfants. How are babies combining sensory modalities to understand their social environment?"

More information: Neural Tracking of the Maternal Voice in the Infant Brain, JNeurosci (2025). DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0646-25.2025 Journal information: Journal of Neuroscience

Provided by Society for Neuroscience