Infants show remarkable skills for processing music in the first year of life. Such skills are believed to foster social and communicative development, yet little is known about how infants’ own preferences for music develop and whether social information plays a role. Here, we investigate whether the reactions of another person influence infants’ responses to music. Specifically, 12-month-olds (N = 33) saw an actor react positively or negatively after listening to clips of instrumental music. Arousal (measured via pupil dilation) and attention (measured via looking time) were assessed when infants later heard the clips without the actor visible. Results showed greater pupil dilation when listening to music clips that had previously been reacted to negatively than those that had been reacted to positively (Exp. 1). This effect was not replicated when a similar, rather than identical, clip from the piece of music was used in the test phase (Exp. 2, N = 35 12-month-olds). There were no effects of the actor's positive or negative reaction on looking time. Together, our findings suggest that infants are sensitive to others’ positive and negative reactions not only for concrete objects, such as food or toys, but also for more abstract stimuli including music.

中文翻译：

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12个月大的婴儿对音乐的生理反应受他人正负反应的影响

婴儿在生命的第一年表现出非凡的音乐处理能力。这些技能被认为可以促进社交和交流的发展，但人们对婴儿自己对音乐的偏好如何发展以及社交信息是否起作用却知之甚少。在这里，我们调查另一个人的反应是否会影响婴儿对音乐的反应。具体来说，12 个月大的 ( N = 33) 看到演员在听完器乐片段后做出积极或消极的反应。当婴儿后来在没有演员可见的情况下听到剪辑时，会评估唤醒（通过瞳孔扩张测量）和注意力（通过注视时间测量）。结果显示，在聆听先前受到负面反应的音乐片段时，瞳孔扩张程度大于对正面反应的音乐片段（实验 1）。当在测试阶段使用相似而不是相同的音乐片段时，这种效果没有被复制（实验 2，N = 35 个 12 个月大的婴儿）。演员的积极或消极反应对观看时间没有影响。总之，我们的研究结果表明，婴儿不仅对他人对食物或玩具等具体物体的积极和消极反应很敏感，而且对包括音乐在内的更抽象的刺激也很敏感。