Abstract
The literature on Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS)/Abusive Head Trauma (AHT) has long noted that males are by far more prone to injuring crying infants than females. It is also widely reported that crying is often the singular event in the infant behavior that triggers abusive responses at the hand of fathers, stepfathers, boyfriends, male babysitters, or older male siblings. Attempts are made in this paper to identify the precise threshold at which males and females perceive infant crying as aversive. Fifty individuals, 36 females, 13 males, and one transgender participated in a socio-acoustic survey aimed at eliciting their responses to infant cries at four different decibels levels: £70 dBA, 71-75 dB, 76-80 dB, and ³ 81 dBA. Chi-square is used to gauge the statistical significance of the participants’ responses. Reactions are found to be similar across various cries except when decibel levels reach or exceed 81 dBA. The findings reported in this paper are seminal in that they help to pinpoint when crying signals are likely to overwhelm males’ neurophysiological system.
Recommended Citation
Koffi, Ettien and Soumare, Ibrahim
(2025)
"DIFFERENTIAL ANALYSIS OF GENDER-BASED PERCEPTION OF AVERSIVENESS IN INFANT CRY,"
Linguistic Portfolios: Vol. 14, Article 8.
Available at:
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_ling/vol14/iss1/8
