Comparative and developmental approach to mother-infant communication focusing fetal auditory experiences and cross-modal perception

我们证实，胎儿在妊娠中期到晚期听到母亲的声音时，胎儿的张嘴和心率会增加。我们的结果和最近在另一个项目中的发现表明，使用复杂的胎儿行为指标，例如，更微小的面部运动，可以建立关于人类跨模态感知出现的独特特征的研究。为进一步研究人类跨模态感知的早期发育和进化奠定了基础。

We verified that fetal mouth opening and fetal heart rate increase when fetuses hear their mothers voice from the second to the third trimester of pregnancy. Our results and recent findings in another project suggest that using sophisticated fetal behavioral indices, for example, more minuscule facial movements, research on human unique characteristics in terms of emergence of cross-modal perception would be established. Comparative data was also obtained to understand fetal brain and behavioral development in chimpanzees, which would be the basis for further research of early development and the evolution for cross-modal perception in humans.