ArticleScientific reports2019
Preterm and full term infant vocalization and the origin of language.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 82 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evolutionary Background of Precise Vocal-Respiratory Temporal Coordination in Human Infants.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Review
- A Pilot Investigation on the Relationship Between Infant Vocal Characteristics at 12 Months and Speech Motor Impairment at 4-5 Years.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR · 2025Article
- The robustness of speech-like vocalization in typically developing infants and infants with autism.Research in developmental disabilities · 2025Article
- Foundations of Vocal Category Development in Autistic Infants.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- Co-developing sleep-wake and sensory foundations for cognition in the human fetus and newborn.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Review
- Article
- Vocal Characteristics of Children With Cerebral Palsy and Anarthria.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR · 2024Article
- Acoustic features of vocalizations in typically developing and autistic infants in the first year.Research in developmental disabilities · 2024Article
- Lessons for Theory from Scientific Domains Where Evidence is Sparse or Indirect.Computational brain & behavior · 2024Article
- From emotional signals to symbols.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Article
- Everyday language input and production in 1,001 children from six continents.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Features of animal babbling in the vocal ontogeny of the gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus).Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Vocal Characteristics of Infants at Risk for Speech Motor Involvement: A Scoping Review.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR · 2023Article
- ReCANVo: A database of real-world communicative and affective nonverbal vocalizations.Scientific data · 2023Article
- Article
- A Probe Study on Vocal Development in Two Infants at Risk for Cerebral Palsy.Developmental neurorehabilitation · 2023Article
- Vocal communication is tied to interpersonal arousal coupling in caregiver-infant dyads.eLife · 2022Article
- Emerging Verbal Functions in Early Infancy: Lessons from Observational and Computational Approaches on Typical Development and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.Advances in neurodevelopmental disorders · 2022Article
- [Early detection of primary developmental language disorders-increasing relevance due to changes in diagnostic criteria?]Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
How did vocal language originate? Before trying to determine how referential vocabulary or syntax may have arisen, it is critical to explain how ancient hominins began to produce vocalization flexibly, without binding to emotions or functions. A crucial factor in the vocal communicative split of hominins from the ape background may thus have been copious, functionally flexible vocalization, starting in infancy and continuing throughout life, long before there were more advanced linguistic features such as referential vocabulary. 2-3 month-old modern human infants produce "protophones", including at least three types of functionally flexible non-cry precursors to speech rarely reported in other ape infants. But how early in life do protophones actually appear? We report that the most common protophone types emerge abundantly as early as vocalization can be observed in infancy, in preterm infants still in neonatal intensive care. Contrary to the expectation that cries are the predominant vocalizations of infancy, our all-day recordings showed that protophones occurred far more frequently than cries in both preterm and full-term infants. Protophones were not limited to interactive circumstances, but also occurred at high rates when infants were alone, indicating an endogenous inclination to vocalize exploratorily, perhaps the most fundamental capacity underlying vocal language.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.