The suppression of crying in the human neonate: response to human vocal tract stimuli

Amounts of crying were measured for two groups of infants in two states, calm and crying. The stimulus group was exposed to two test-cry stimuli (own-cry/other-cry) in both states. The control group was not exposed to the test-cry stimuli. For the stimulus group, results showed that there was no significant difference in the amount of crying during presentation of either the own-cry or other-cry test stimulus. However, the stimulus group did cry significantly less than the control group. This difference in the amount of crying was attributed to the capacity of the infant to suppress crying in the presence of auditory stimuli.