| Popis: |
Infant vocalizations have been described mostly from the perspective of language acquisition. There is little systematic research on infant production of music sounds. This study investigated infants’ music production by identifying and analyzing vocal imitation of music produced by one infant throughout one day. One 15-month-old infant wore a portable recording device that captured 16 continuous hours of sounds produced within hearing distance of the infant, as well as sounds from the infant’s own vocal production. Instances of music imitation were identified through extensive and intensive listening of the audio file. Physical parameters of the imitative vocalizations were collected through acoustic analysis. A selection of imitations was presented to adults in a validation study involving perceptual similarity judgments between the infant’s imitation and the model that was imitated. Results from acoustic analyses and the validation study supported the perceptual identification of the imitations.The findings show that the infant imitated music that he had heard that day. The infant imitated music features such as pitches, intervals, and rhythms of songs that were sung to him and of a melody produced by a toy. Some imitations occurred many hours after the infant had heard the melodies that served as models. These results reveal the ability of infants to (a) develop accurate representations of music melodies, (b) recall such representations at will hours later, and more importantly, (c) express these music representations vocally. In summary, the findings show that infants are capable of producing music imitations. |
