The mechanism of infants preference for singers : To investigate communicative function of singing to infant.

• Project/Area Number: 25750380
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Childhood science (childhood environment science)
• Research Institution: Institute of Physical and Chemical Research
• Principal Investigator: Yamane Naoto 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 脳科学総合研究センター, 専門職研究員 (60550192)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
• Budget Amount: ¥3,120,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥720,000); Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000); Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
• Keywords: 歌いかけ / コミュニケーション / 乳児 / 母子相互作用 / 発達

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Caregivers sing songs to their infants in everyday life. It’s singing have clear communicative intention such as playful interactions and soothing. I investigated how infants process song itself and how they understand such intention, using both brain response and preferential looking experiment. The brain response demonstrated that infants showed different responses to song compared with speech at early in life. Furthermore eye movement results suggested that not only song itself but also singer’s gaze and singing behavior would be related to infants’ preference to singers.

Research Products

• [Presentation] Japanese Infants are Aware of Phonemic Vowel Length in Novel Words at 18 months. (2015)
  • Author(s): Hui Chen, Naoto Yamane, Nan Xu Rattanasone, Katherine Demuth & Reiko Mazuka
  • Organizer: BUCLD
  • Place of Presentation: Boston, USA
  • Year and Date: 2015-11-12
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Discrimination of Lenis and Aspirated Stop Contrasts among Korean infants. (2015)
  • Author(s): Minji Nam, Youngon Choi, Naoto Yamane & Reiko Mazuka
  • Organizer: Workshop on Infant Language Development 2015
  • Place of Presentation: StockHolm, Sweden
  • Year and Date: 2015-06-20
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] 幼児の歌唱の音響特性 (2015)
  • Author(s): 山根直人
  • Organizer: 第68回日本保育学会
  • Place of Presentation: 椙山女学園大学・名古屋市・愛知県
  • Year and Date: 2015-05-09
• [Presentation] 乳児を対象にしたストレスタスク前後のコルチゾール測定における諸課題 (2015)
  • Author(s): 高橋美樹、山根直人、福田早苗、馬塚れい子
  • Organizer: 第20回精神神経内分泌免疫学（PNEI）研究集会
  • Place of Presentation: 関西福祉科学大学
  • Year and Date: 2015-03-28
• [Presentation] 乳児の歌唱音声に対する脳反応からみた言語と音楽の違い (2015)
  • Author(s): 山根直人
  • Organizer: 第26回日本発達心理学会
  • Place of Presentation: 東京大学
  • Year and Date: 2015-03-20 – 2015-03-22
• [Presentation] Musical development from infancy to childhood. (2015)
  • Author(s): Naoto Yamane
  • Organizer: 第4回玉川大学脳科学研究所リトリート
  • Place of Presentation: 箱根湯元富士屋ホテル
  • Year and Date: 2015-02-25 – 2015-02-27
  • Invited
• [Presentation] Sensitivity to emotional vocalization in infant: A cross-linguistic study with Japanese and English learning infants. (2014)
  • Author(s): Naoto Yamane, Kristin Johnson, Ashley Ruba, Yuri Hatano & Reiko Mazuka.
  • Organizer: IASCL 2015
  • Place of Presentation: Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Year and Date: 2014-07-14 – 2014-07-18
• [Presentation] 乳児の歌唱聴取における脳反応とその発達 (2013)
  • Author(s): 山根直人、佐藤裕、志村洋子、馬塚れい子
  • Organizer: 日本赤ちゃん学会
  • Place of Presentation: アクロス福岡(福岡県)
• [Book] 保育ナビ 2015年12月号 (2015)
  • Author(s): 山根直人
  • Total Pages: 72
  • Publisher: フレーベル館