Why happy rather than sad music soothes newborns – new research

Newborns respond to aspects of music, such as its beat, structure as well as consonance and dissonance.

Music is the language of emotions, arousing and regulating our feelings. For example, research has shown that college students listen to music 37% of the time, and it fills them with happiness, elation or nostalgia during 64% of these sessions.

Children might have even greater exposure to music than adults do. Survey data shows that 54% of teachers in South Korea use background music in schools. We also know music is played as often as 6.5 times per hour to help children’s learning in US classrooms.

But how early do children develop a real appreciation for and understanding of music? Our recent study, published in Psychological Studies, suggests newborns may be rather musical, finding happy music soothing in particular.

This could be seen as surprising because, ultimately, culture plays a major role in when and how we understand music – it’s something we learn. Preschoolers, for example, are often unable to pair pictures of happy or sad faces with happy or sad music. Such ability usually develops later in childhood.

It has long been unclear whether newborns and young children feel emotions in music. But we know that newborns respond to aspects of music, such as its beat, structure as well as consonance and dissonance.

Young infants also love “motherese”, a very musical, melodic and slow type of speech that adults often adopt when talking to babies. Even those babies who can hear but were born to deaf parents (who don’t speak to them in this way) pay attention to such speech or maternal-style singing.

Some research suggests even foetuses seem to respond to music. One study has shown that when pregnant women at the 28th week of gestation listen to their favourite songs, their foetuses' heartbeats increase, even though the mothers show no change in their heart rates.