Musical cognition at birth: a qualitative study

Abstract

This paper describes research on newborns’ responses to music. Video observation and electroencephalogram (EEG) were collected to see whether newborns’ responses to random sounds differed from their responses to music. The data collected were subjected to both qualitative and quantitative analysis. This paper will focus on the qualitative study, that is, in depth analyses of video recordings. Our findings from this analysis were supported by results from the quantitative analysis, especially analysis of the EEG recordings. Our analyses point to clear differences in response to random sounds vs. to music, thereby supporting the hypothesis that musical cognitive activity is already present at birth. Our video analyses showed movements, especially hand movements, which were cyclical in nature; these cyclical movements fit the phrase division of the musical piece (an excerpt from a piano concerto by Mozart). Correspondence between certain musical events (crescendo, rise to the highest register) and movement responses surpassed our expectation in terms of apparent responsiveness to cycles of tension release generated by the music.