Subject: Re: apparent increase in loudness From: John Neuhoff <jneuhoff(at)WOOSTER.EDU> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 16:40:48 -0500> > Is this a known phenomenon? > > > Yes, to all mothers :-) > --fatima It does seem to be true that both the experience of parenthood and sex are important factors in processing infant vocalizations. We found that parents show greater amygdala activation to cries than non-parents. Females showed neural deactivation in the anterior cingulate cortex in response to both crying and laughing, while males were unaffected. See: Seifritz, Esposito, Neuhoff, Lüthi, Mustovic, Dammann, von Bardeleben, Radue, Cirillo, Tedeschi, Di Salle (2003). Differential sex-independent amygdala response to infant crying and laughing in parents versus non-parents. Biological Psychiatry, 54, 1367 - 1375. http://jneuhoff.com/Infant_Crying.pdf Or the abridged version from Nature Science Update... http://www.nature.com/nsu/031215/031215-13.html >From the abstract... "Women but not men, independent of their parental status, showed neural deactivation in the anterior cingulate cortex, as indexed by decreased blood oxygenation level– dependent signal, in response to both infant crying and laughing. The response pattern changed fundamentally with parental experience: in the amygdala and interconnected limbic regions, parents (independent of sex) showed stronger activation from crying, whereas nonparents showed stronger activation from laughing." -John ________________________________ John G. Neuhoff Department of Psychology The College of Wooster Wooster, OH 44691 Phone: 330-263-2475 Fax: 928-244-5577 http://jneuhoff.com ************************ "Ecological Psychoacoustics" from Academic Press June, 2004 http://www.jneuhoff.com/ecopsyc.htm ************************************