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Abstract
The intrauterine environment presents a rich array of sensory stimuli to which the fetus responds. The maternal voice is perhaps the most salient of all auditory stimuli. The following experiments examined the movement response of the fetus and newborn to its mother's voice and a strange female's voice and to voices speaking normally and speaking 'motherese'. Newborns (2-4 days of age) discriminated, as measured by the number of movements exhibited to the presentation of the stimuli, between their mother's voice and a stranger's voice and between normal speech and 'motherese', in both cases the former being preferred. Fetuses, 36 weeks of gestational age, evidenced no ability to discriminate between their mother's and a stranger's voice played to them via a loudspeaker on the abdomen but did discriminate between their mother's voice when played to them by a loudspeaker on the abdomen and the mother's voice produced by her speaking. The results are further evidence of the ability of the fetus to learn prenatally and indicate a possible role for prenatal experience of voices in subsequent language development and attachment.
