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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 24, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Voice and emotion processing in the human neonatal brain.

Yawei Cheng¹, Shin-Yi Lee, Hsin-Yu Chen

¹Institute of Neuroscience and Brain Research Center, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan. ywcheng2@ym.edu.tw

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

|February 25, 2012

Summary

Newborn brains can distinguish emotional voices, showing right-hemisphere specialization for voice and emotion processing. This affective discrimination is driven by voice perception, not just sound features.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Developmental Psychology
Auditory Perception

Background:

The human brain develops voice sensitivity early.
However, neonatal brain sensitivity to voice perception remains unproven.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if the neonatal brain can perceive and differentiate emotional voices.
To determine if this perception relies on voice characteristics or acoustic features.
To explore hemispheric specialization in early voice processing.

Main Methods:

Electroencephalography (EEG) mismatch response (MMR) was measured in 98 newborns (1-5 days old).
Stimuli included emotionally spoken syllables ('dada') and matched synthesized nonvocal sounds.
Experiments varied emotional content (happy, fearful, neutral, angry) and sound type.

Main Results:

Happy syllables elicited a right-hemisphere-lateralized MMR compared to nonvocal sounds.
Fearful syllables evoked stronger MMR amplitudes than happy or neutral syllables, irrespective of sex.
Angry versus happy syllables elicited an MMR, while their nonvocal counterparts did not.

Conclusions:

Neonatal affective discrimination is driven by voice processing, not low-level acoustics.
Cerebral specialization for human voice and emotion processing emerges in the right hemisphere shortly after birth.