Baby cry recognition is independent of motherhood but improved by experience and exposure

Neurobiological changes affecting new mothers are known to support the development of the mother-infant relationship (the “maternal brain”). However, which aspects of parenting are actually mother-specific and which rely on general cognitive abilities remains debated. For example, refuting earlier findings, a recent study demonstrated that fathers identify their own baby from their cries just as well as mothers. Here we show that this performance is not only independent of sex, but also of parenthood status. We found that mothers’ ability to recognize their newborn from their cries increased rapidly within few days postpartum, with highly multiparous mothers performing better. However, both male and female nonparents could similarly recognize an assigned baby, even after a very short exposure. As in mothers, both the initial amount of experimental exposure to the baby’s cries (learning opportunity) and prior experience of caring for infants (auditory expertise) affected participants’ performance. We thus suggest that, rather than being female-specific or motherhood-dependent, the ability to recognise a baby from their cries derives from general auditory and learning skills. By being available to nonparents of both sexes it may contribute to the caregiving flexibility required for efficient cooperative breeding in humans.已知影响初为人母群体的神经生物学变化，可促进母婴联结（即“母亲大脑（maternal brain）”）的形成。然而，育儿行为中究竟哪些特质属于母亲专属，哪些又依赖于通用认知能力，这一问题至今仍存在争议。例如，近期一项研究驳斥了此前的结论，证明父亲仅凭婴儿哭声辨认亲生孩子的能力与母亲不相上下。本研究表明，这种辨认能力不仅与性别无关，也不受是否为人父母的身份影响。我们发现，母亲仅凭哭声辨认亲生孩子的能力在产后数日内快速提升，且经产次数较多的母亲表现更优。但无论男女，未为人父母者同样可以准确辨认实验中指定的婴儿，即便仅经过极短时间的接触。与母亲群体一致，实验中接触婴儿哭声的初始时长（即学习机会）以及此前照料婴儿的经验（即听觉专长），均会影响参与者的表现。因此我们认为，仅凭哭声辨认婴儿的能力并非女性专属或依赖于母亲身份，而是源于通用的听觉与学习技能。由于这种能力在男女非父母群体中均具备，它或可助力人类高效合作育幼所需的照料灵活性。