"Motherese" Prosody in Fetal-Directed Speech: An Exploratory Study Using Automatic Social Signal Processing.

Area of Science:

• Perinatal psychology
• Developmental linguistics
• Speech analysis

Background:

• Motherese, or emotional infant-directed speech (IDS), is characterized by affective prosody and signals caregiver-infant interaction quality.
• Previous research has focused on IDS post-birth, with limited understanding of prenatal communication patterns.
• Automatic analysis methods can detect prosodic characteristics of IDS.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether pregnant women communicate with their fetuses using motherese.
• To determine if prenatal emotional fetal-directed speech (e-FDS) can be detected and analyzed.
• To explore the impact of maternal anxiety, depression, and obstetrical status on fetal-directed speech.

Main Methods:

• An observational study involving 35 pregnant women (26-38 weeks gestation) recruited from a university hospital.
• Audio recordings of women speaking to their fetuses for 3 minutes were collected.
• Recordings were analyzed using both expert psycholinguistic annotation and objective computational methods.

Main Results:

• 89% of mothers reported speaking to their fetuses, with speech onset correlating with the first perception of fetal movements.
• Motherese prosody, termed prenatal motherese or e-FDS, was detected by both analysis methods.
• While not associated with overall anxiety or obstetrical status, increased maternal depression correlated with reduced fetal-directed speech.

Conclusions:

• Fetal-directed speech (FDS) containing motherese-like prosody (e-FDS) is detectable during pregnancy, earlier than previously assumed.
• Prenatal motherese appears linked to maternal perception of fetal movement and depression scores.
• Further research is required to validate these exploratory findings on prenatal communication.