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A Comparative Model of Infant Cry

  • Chapter
Infant Crying

Abstract

Language is generally considered to be unique to the human species and, of its various forms, vocal language, or speech, clearly represents one of the most complex behaviors of any species. The linguistic aspect of speech involves a hierarchy of discrete elements that develop meaning as basic phonemic units are combined into syllables and words, and these, in turn, are organized by rules of syntax into meaningful phrases and sentences. The resulting expression is understandable either when produced by the human voice or by a speech synthesizer such as a computer. However, the marked difference in quality and ease of comprehension between natural and synthetic speech is, in large part, a function of a second nonlexical element— the “paralinguistic” or prosodic component of speech. The qualities of pitch, intensity, and duration combine to provide an overall intonation that makes the human voice recognizable and familiar, projects emotional states—happiness, anger, fear—and conveys general intent as, for example, the terminal rising inflection of a yes/no question versus the falling inflection of a declaration.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, Brain Research Institute and Mental Retardation Research Center, School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, California, 90024, USA

    Jennifer S. Buchwald & Carl Shipley

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  1. Jennifer S. Buchwald
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  2. Carl Shipley
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Barry M. Lester  & C. F. Zachariah Boukydis  & 

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© 1985 Plenum Press, New York

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Buchwald, J.S., Shipley, C. (1985). A Comparative Model of Infant Cry. In: Lester, B.M., Zachariah Boukydis, C.F. (eds) Infant Crying. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2381-5_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2381-5_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9455-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2381-5

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