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PubMedDate not supplied

Infant crying and adults' anticipated caregiving responses: acoustic and contextual influences.

These studies assessed adults' latencies to signal that they would respond to infant crying as functions of (1) the degree of infant distress they perceived in the cry, and (2) contextual information relevant to caregiving. In the first study (N = 34), listeners waited longer to respond to cries that they had earlier rated as sounding less distressed than when they heard cries of higher distress. Further, those who had been told that the infant needed sleep waited longer to respond than those without this information. This effect of context information, however, was limited to the latencies; in another study (N = 50), listeners' ratings of distress were not affected. Several acoustic features of the cries correlated with distress ratings and with latencies to signal a caregiving response. Taken together, the results suggest that adults' responses to crying are influenced both by acoustic gradations in the cry itself and by the caregiving context. Ratings of degree of distress manifest in the cry, in other words, may be highly predictive of caregiving behavior but not wholly so. Finally, although certain acoustic variations related to greater perceived distress and speed of response, differences were apparent between infants in the magnitude of these variations. The implication that the general process of cry perception may be calibrated, or fine tuned, to the range of acoustic variation provided by individual infants is discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Vagal rebound during resolution of tearful crying among depressed and nondepressed individuals.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is an index of the vagal control of heart rate that is associated with emotion regulatory capacity. To examine RSA in depressed and nondepressed participants in the context of an emotion-regulatory challenge, we presented a sad film to induce crying, a behavior associated with heightened parasympathetic activation. We predicted that nondepressed persons who cried would show elevations in RSA during the onset and the resolution of crying. By contrast, we predicted that depressed individuals who cried would fail to exhibit increased RSA over the course of their crying episodes. As hypothesized, nondepressed participants exhibited RSA increases that accompanied the resolution of tearful crying, consistent with a homeostatic function for crying, whereas depressed subjects who cried did not exhibit increased RSA. Results suggest that the physiological self-regulatory mechanisms invoked by crying are compromised in depression.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Duration and pattern of crying in the first year of life.

In a prospective study of fetal and postnatal growth and development in a group of babies whose mothers were residents of an inner-city health district in the north of England, the total amount of crying of 157 infants was recorded at four periods during the first year of life by means of a 24-hour log. The mean number of crying episodes reduced from 4.4 at six weeks to 1.5 at one year. Early crying predicted later crying. It was not possible to predict which babies would cry a lot except that breast-fed infants tended to cry less. Mothers' perceptions of whether their babies cried a lot correlated with their perception of sleep difficulties. Rapid response to crying was associated with significantly less crying overall.

Crying↗
PubMed1994

Computerized cry analysis in infants affected by severe protein energy malnutrition.

A new method of computerized cry analysis has been utilized to evaluate the cries of infants affected by severe protein energy malnutrition. We studied 17 Kenian babies affected by severe malnutrition for more than four months (9 cases of marasmus and 8 of kwashiorkor) and a control group of 17 well-nourished babies. The cries of the malnourished children showed lower inter-utterance variability, formants' frequencies and cry score, assigned by the Infant Cry Modulation Assessment Scale. The melodic pattern was more often flat, rising or falling-rising, when compared to the cries of the well-nourished babies. We hypothesize that these differences reflect the state of brain damage associated with protein energy malnutrition. No differences were found between the cries of infants affected by marasmus and those affected by kwashiorkor, between the cries recorded before and after nutritional therapy and between the first cries of malnourished children who subsequently died during hospitalization and those of infants who survived.

Acoustics↗
PubMed1996

Crying, weeping or tearfulness in British and Israeli adults.

Participants (aged 20-42 years; N = 448) from Britain and Israel answered questions on their crying behaviour. They were more likely to cry alone than when with others and least likely to cry with people they did not know well. Women cried more often and for longer and with more intensity than men. Britons cried more than Israelis. Explanations in terms of differential inhibition were not supported. The sex difference was especially marked for situations involving criticism from others, anger, or problems with work, where men were particularly unlikely to cry, and least for those situations Darwin described as involving tender feelings. The pattern was related to differences documented elsewhere in which men tend to more active and confrontational styles of behaviour. British-Israeli differences were consistent with the effects of military service. Tearfulness for tender feelings increased with age in all groups. A principal component analysis distinguished crying that is intense, long lasting and difficult to stop from crying that is more diverse in appearance but more controllable. The distinction seems related to whether crying pre-empts or concurs with other ongoing activities.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Acoustic analysis of cries from "normal" and "irritable" infants.

Infant irritability or colic is characterized by recurrent episodes of persistent, unexplained crying. The lack of a precise definition of the type and amount of cry that distinguishes an infant as colicky has hampered research and intervention efforts. The primary aims of this study are to describe the acoustic characteristics of cries of irritable infants and compare these to those of normal infants. Tape recorded cries of 11 irritable and 11 non-irritable infants were compared. The average age for infants of both groups was 8 weeks. The cries of irritable infants were higher in jitter, shimmer, proportion of noise, and tenseness than were the cries of control infants. Findings suggest that colic or infant irritability is more than just excessive crying. Acoustic characteristics of the cries of irritable infants reveal an increase in stress-arousal that supports the thesis of a state regulation disorder. Characterizing the nature and origin of the cries of irritable infants is essential to an understanding that will eventually guide appropriate diagnosis and management of these infants.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2001

Excessive infant crying: the impact of varying definitions.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of varying definitions of excessive crying and infantile colic on prevalence estimates and to assess to what extent these definitions comprise the same children. METHODS: Parents of 3345 infants aged 1, 3, and 6 months (response: 96.5%) were interviewed on the crying behavior of their infant in a Dutch cross-sectional national population-based study. We computed the prevalence of excessive crying according to 10 published definitions regarding parent-reported duration of infant crying and the parents' experience. We measured concordance between pairs of definitions by Cohen's kappa (agreement adjusted for chance agreement). RESULTS: Overall prevalence rates of excessive crying varied strongly between definitions, from 1.5% to 11.9%. They were always highest in 1-month-old infants. Concordance between definitions was only excellent (kappa > 0.75) if they were closely related, such as crying for >3 hours/day for >3 days/week for the preceding 2 or 3 weeks. Concordance between less closely related definitions was much weaker. Concordance between definitions that were based on duration and on parental experience was mostly poor (kappa: 0.17-0.53 for infants aged 1 and 3 months). CONCLUSIONS: Different definitions of excessive crying lead to the inclusion of very dissimilar groups of infants. We recommend presenting study results using clearly described definitions, preferably concerning both duration of crying and parental distress. This may improve the comparability of studies on the cause and treatment of excessive infant crying. The impact of the method of data collection on this comparability needs additional study.colic, preventive child health care, prevention, infancy.

Colic↗
PubMed2003

Self-reported crying during the menstrual cycle: sign of discomfort and emotional turmoil or erroneous beliefs?

Crying is generally associated with distress and discomfort, and is also part of the premenstrual syndrome in women. The present studies focussed on crying fluctuations during the menstrual cycle. First, a retrospective cross-cultural study of women from 33 different countries (n = 2447) was conducted. Crying proneness reportedly increased before menstruation, with remarkable cross-cultural differences. Women who were using oral contraceptives (OC) reported largely the same pattern of results as women who were not using OC. In a second study, 82 Dutch students kept a crying and mood diary for two consecutive menstrual cycles. During no phase of the menstrual cycle did actual crying episodes or crying proneness increase, although significant changes in mood were reported. Given the large cross-cultural differences on the one hand, and the remarkable correspondence between the self-reports of those using OC and those who did not use them on the other, it is concluded that the role of female sex hormone fluctuations in crying has to be questioned. Rather, it seems more likely that fluctuations in self-reported crying are based on implicit theories about the relationship between the menstrual cycle, mood and crying.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Medical and nursing students crying in hospital settings.

Crying may be described as a loss of control, the result of feelings of helplessness and inadequacy, or a sign of suffering. It may occur in a variety of situations, such as unhappiness, sadness, illness, death, anxiety, pain, or failure, but it can also arise from joy and fulfillment. Crying is frequently observed in hospitals. The aim of this study was to determine the crying patterns of undergraduate medical and nursing students. The study design included non-experimental, descriptive research using a self-report questionnaire. Of the 130 students who completed the questionnaire, 90 were medical students and 40 were nursing students. Seventy-nine of the students were women, and 51 were men. All of the students were in their last semester of study. Many of the medical and nursing students reported having cried in a hospital. Of students who had cried, 90% were women, and 10% were men. Medical students usually cried outside the hospital setting, whereas nursing students usually cried in the nurses' room. Personal problems faced by students during their education were the primary reason for crying. Although more than half of the students felt relaxed after crying, only the nursing students sought comfort from the people around them. These findings should be useful in the development and continuous improvement of the curricula of medical and nursing students.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2002

Crying threshold and intensity in major depressive disorder.

Clinical lore suggests that depression is associated with frequent and intense crying. To test these postulations empirically, a standardized cry-evoking stimulus was presented to depressed and nondepressed participants, and their likelihood of crying and the magnitude of crying-related changes in their emotion experience, behavior, and autonomic physiology were compared. Unexpectedly, crying was no more likely in depressed than in nondepressed participants. Within the nondepressed group, participants who cried exhibited increases in the report and display of sadness and had greater cardiac and electrodermal activation than did participants who did not cry. There was less evidence of this crying-related emotional activation within the depressed group. The lack of emotional activation among clinically depressed participants who cried provides a tantalizing clue concerning how emotions are dysregulated in this disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Prolonged and unsoothable crying bouts in infants with and without colic.

ABSTRACT.: The authors sought to determine which features of early distress were "excessive" and specific to the first months of life as described by diary recordings. In a short-term, longitudinal, controlled study, total daily amount, frequency, and bout duration of fussing, crying, and unsoothable crying were derived from validated diaries kept by parents of infants with and without diary-defined colic at 6 weeks and 5 months recruited from primary pediatrics practices. By definition, infants with colic demonstrated more distress at 6 weeks, but they also had a much greater reduction in distress by 5 months and more distress during the fifth month. However, bout frequencies and bout durations showed different patterns. Bout duration was longer for the colic group only at 6 weeks; the difference completely disappeared by 5 months. Bout frequency was higher for the colic group at 6 weeks and 5 months, but the reduction across ages was similar in infants with and without colic. These patterns were true for all distress modalities (fussing, crying, and unsoothable crying). Unsoothable crying was present in significant amounts only at 6 weeks but virtually disappeared by 5 months. The authors conclude that prolonged distress bouts and unsoothable crying are specific to the first few months and more common, though not unique, in infants with colic. This implies that our understanding of colic may depend more on why these infants cry longer once started than what makes infants cry. These features of parental experience may be important in preventive efforts to reduce negative impacts of early increased crying such as shaken baby syndrome.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Effects of in utero cocaine exposure on newborn acoustical cry characteristics.

As part of a large, multicenter study of newborn cry analysis and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, we examined the effects of in utero cocaine exposure on ten acoustical cry characteristics. Newborn cry recording and medical record review was performed for 23,948 newborns. Cocaine use during pregnancy (determined by record review) was identified in 438 (1.8%) women (310 by self-report only; 128 newborns also had positive urine assay). A demographically similar group of 373 newborns, selected from the 23,510 newborns without known cocaine exposure, made up the comparison group. Cry analysis was technically possible for 768 recordings: 404 cocaine-exposed and 364 non-exposed controls. Comparison of cocaine-exposed vs control newborns, after adjustment for potential confounding variables, found significant differences including: fewer cry utterances (P = .001), more short cries (P = .02), and less crying in the hyperphonation mode (P = .01), for the cocaine-exposed neonates. As reported in other studies, cocaine-exposed newborns also were significantly lower in birth weight, length, and head circumference. Newborns who had positive urine tests for cocaine suffered the greatest effects on both cry and growth parameters. These findings suggest a pattern of underaroused neurobehavioral function and are consistent with the emerging picture of the adverse neurobehavioral effects of cocaine. Developmental outcome studies are in progress to determine if acoustical analysis of the newborn cry can be used to identify cocaine-exposed newborns who are at highest risk for poor outcome.

Acoustics↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Acoustic discrimination of three types of infant cries.

The ability of acoustic characteristics, both separately and in linear combination with others, to differentiate among procedural pain-induced, hungry, and fussy crying was explored using audiorecordings of cries from healthy 2 to 4-month-old infants. Fussy cries were less tense than hungry or pain-induced cries and pain-induced cries had significantly stronger second formant amplitudes than fussy or hungry cries. Formants and tenseness were important contributors to a linear combination of acoustic measures, derived from discriminant function analysis, which correctly classified 74% of the procedural pain-induced crying specimens. The inability of this linear combination of acoustic measures to identify correctly approximately one-third of the cry specimens suggests that the discrete acoustic differences among the three situationally defined types of crying is not large.

Acoustics↗
PubMed1983

Children's emotions and behaviors in response to infants' cries.

Infant crying can elicit in others both a range of emotions and contrasting behavioral reactions, such as altruistic caregiving versus aggression. Variations in reactions to young infants' cries were examined in 60 children ranging in age from late preschool to preadolescence. Each child over-heard either a preterm or a full-term tape-recorded cry from an adjacent room. Then a mother, carrying her infant, came looking for her (previously) "crying" infant's bottle. Later each child was interviewed after hearing a tape recording of a preterm and a full-term cry. Children's emotions and behaviors thus were assessed in response to simulated, real distresses and hypothetical representations of distress. Children's self-reports of empathy, their verbalized intentions to help, their actual helping responses, and observers' ratings of negative emotion were common responses to cries at all ages. In addition there were significant increases with age in prosocial, behavioral interventions. Expressions of negative emotion were inversely related to subsequent forms of prosocial behavior that required direct interaction with the infant. The emotions and behaviors of most children were not influenced by whether they heard preterm or full-term cries. They were, however, able to discriminate between such cries and some articulated "theories" about the impact of the cries on the listener.

Arousal↗
PubMed1982

The cries of infants of differing levels of perceived temperamental difficultness: acoustic properties and effects on listeners.

The meaning of mother perceptions of their infants' temperamental difficultness was explored in 3 ways. (1) Subjective ratings were elicited from unrelated mothers of infants (N = 45) who listened to the cries of 4-6-month-old infants perceived by their own mothers as having difficult, average, or easy temperament (N = 4 per category). Subjects rated the difficult- and average-group cries as more irritating and spoiled sounding than the easy-group cries, and more likely to be due to emotional or psychological causes. However, there were no differences in the subjects' hypothetical interventions. (2) The meaning of the difficultness designations was also tested by measuring the acoustic properties of the cries of the 12 infants using sound spectrographs. The clearest difference was that the more difficult groups showed increased amounts of pausing within and between cry sounds, which is interpreted as adding a sense of urgent demand to the cry communication. (3) The study also considered the effects of a variety of listener background, personality, and attitude variables. The listener's perception of the difficultness of her own 4-6-month, firstborn infant was not related to ratings of the cries, but her prior experience with infants and level of self-described empathy were related to the ratings. For example, the more experienced the listener, the less the easy and average infants' cries were rated as spoiled, and the more the difficult infants' cries were seen as spoiled.

Attitude↗
PubMed2000

Composition and ecological distribution of cry proteins and their genotypes of Bacillus thuringiensis isolates from warehouses in China.

The composition and distribution of insecticidal crystal proteins (Cry proteins) and their genotypes of Bacillus thuringiensis isolates from warehouses were evaluated through SDS-PAGE and PCR techniques. The results showed that the electrophoretic patterns of delta-endotoxin crystal preparations were divided into five types. The isolates containing approximately 135 kDa with a 65-kDa protein or only a approximately 135-kDa protein, which amounted to 55.74 and 35.25% of all isolates respectively, were the two major profiles of Cry protein isolated. The distribution of cry genes of B. thuringiensis from warehouses was highly variable. Cry protein genotypes detected in B. thuringiensis isolates included cry1Aa5, cry1Ab9, cry1Ac5, cry1Ba, cry1Ca1, cry1Da1, cry1Ea3, cry2, and cry3 genes, but not cry1Fa2. Among them, cry2, cry1Ac5, and cry1Ab9 genes were the most common in our B. thuringiensis isolates. Most B. thuringiensis isolates contained several cry genes in a total of 18 profiles. Among them, cry1Ac5 with cry1Ea3; cry1Aa5, cry1Ab9, cry1Ac5 with cry1Ea3; and cry1Aa5, cry1Ab9 with cry1Ac5 were the three principal profiles. The distribution of the Cry proteins and cry genes in isolates depended on geography and type of warehouses. Gene profiles may be used as markers for insecticidal activity of B. thuringiensis strains, but they did not directly reflect the toxic level of B. thuringiensis strains. The serotype of B. thuringiensis strains did not directly reflect the specific cry gene profiles in the strains, but certain relationships can be established between the serotype and cry genotype.

Bacillus thuringiensis↗
PubMed2006

Characterization of the highly variable cry gene regions of Bacillus thuringiensis strain ly4a3 by PCR-SSCP profiling and sequencing.

Characterization of cry gene contents can help to predict the insecticidal activities of Bacillus thuringiensis isolates and in the searching of new cry genes. PCR-Single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) profiling and sequencing of the highly variable cry gene regions were used to characterize cry gene content of B. thuringiensis strain ly4a3. The highly variable regions with about 1100 bp in sizes were amplified using a degenerate primer pair for cry genes, OL2(d) and OL5(r). A library of the PCR product was constructed, and all white colonies were subjected to PCR using another degenerate primer pair for cry genes, OL3(d) and OL5(r), with products about 250 bp in sizes. Two different profiles were observed based on SSCP profiling for the PCR products. The cry genes in the two corresponding colonies were sequenced and their deduced amino acids showed high identities to Cry1Ab (84.5% approximately 98.4%) and Cry1I (88.78% approximately 98.4%), respectively. This method allows the quick characterization of cry gene content of B. thuringiensis isolates and the detection of new cry genes.

Bacillus thuringiensis↗
PubMed1994

A yeast artificial chromosome contig of the critical region for cri-du-chat syndrome.

Cri-du-chat is a chromosomal deletion syndrome characterized by partial deletion of the short arm of chromosome 5. The clinical symptoms include growth and mental retardation, microcephaly, hypertelorism, epicanthal folds, hypotonia, and a high-pitched monochromatic cry that is usually considered diagnostic for the syndrome. Recently, a correlation between clinical features and the extent of the chromosome 5 deletions has identified two regions of the short arm that appear to be critical for the abnormal development manifested in this syndrome. Loss of a small region in 5p15.2 correlates with all of the clinical features of cri-du-chat with the exception of the cat-like cry, which maps to 5p15.3. Here we report the construction of a YAC contig that spans the chromosomal region in 5p15.2 that plays a major role in the etiology of the cri-du-chat syndrome. YACs that span the 2-Mb cri-du-chat critical region have been identified and characterized. This YAC contig lays the groundwork for the construction of a transcriptional map of this region and the eventual identification of genes involved in the clinical features associated with the cri-du-chat syndrome. It also provides a new diagnostic tool for cri-du-chat in the shape of a YAC clone that may span the entire critical region.

Base Sequence↗