Abstract
Infant cry is evolutionarily, psychologically, and clinically significant. Over the last half century, several researchers and clinicians have investigated acoustical properties of infant cry for medical purposes. However, this literature suffers a lack of standardization in conducting and reporting cry-based studies. In this work, methodologies and procedures employed to analyze infant cry are reviewed and best practices for reporting studies are provided. First, available literatures on vocal and audio acoustic analysis are examined to identify critical aspects of participant information, data collection, methods, and data analysis. Then, 180 peer-reviewed research articles have been assessed to certify the presence of critical information. Results show a general lack of critical description. Researchers in the field of infant cry need to develop a consensual standard set of criteria to report experimental studies to ensure the validity of their methods and results.
Highlights
Cry is one of the first forms of communication newborns use to interact with their caregivers
The remaining 250 articles were examined by two independent coders to determine which articles met all four inclusion criteria, namely (1) analysis of samples were recorded from infants or from prerecorded datasets; (2) data collection procedure is explained or there is a clear reference to the employed dataset; (3) indications of the methodology used for signal processing is reported; and (4) the article was peer-reviewed and written in English
To avoid differences due to the type of vocalizations, researchers should rely on non-spontaneous vocalizations induced with a single trigger and they should avoid recording babies placed in different positions
Summary
Cry is one of the first forms of communication newborns use to interact with their caregivers. Cry vocalizations are produced by the vibration of vocal folds that are controlled by the Central Nervous System (CNS) On this basis, researchers and clinicians have investigated the possibility of relying on acoustic analysis of infant cry to assess in a noninvasive way the integrity and developmental status of the CNS. In this regard, acoustic analysis has proven to be effective in identifying Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) [1,2,3,4], Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) [5], and a variety of auditory-related problems during the early stages of development [6,7,8,9,10]. In a typical cry study, vocal samples are collected from multiple infants who are induced to cry using a trigger, such as painful stimulus, while acoustic samples are recorded using one or more microphones and the signals are stored in an analog or digital drive
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
