The memory of the new-born baby

In a pilot study 28 new-born babies (average age about 38 hours) were investigated to see whether they could already recognise their mother's voice and other sounds to which they had been exposed before birth. More than half of the babies who could be observed while awake did indeed appear to pay special attention to their mother's voice, but not to any other woman's voice, nor to a lullaby which the mother had played to them regularly in late pregnancy. Most of the new-born babies, who had been regularly exposed to an alarming noise in late pregnancy, were not startled by such a noise, either when sleeping or awake. In contrast, all the neonates without such previous exposure did show a startled reaction to the alarming noise.