How do infants continuously process familiar social signals? And how does this familiarity shape perception?
In a new paper out now in November in the Journal of Neuroscience, Jonas and Martin Orf teamed up with The Lübeck Babylab and its Director Sarah Jessen.
In a large group of 7‑months old infants and their families, Sarah demonstrates that infants’ brains preferentially track speech spoken by their own mother over unfamiliar female voices.
This highlights the early tuning of the auditory system to socially relevant signals. Moreover, the maternal voice modulates the neural encoding of concurrently presented faces without eliciting emotion-specific differences. These findings underscore the role of caregiver signals in shaping multisensory integration during early development. Congratulations to all involved!
