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Infant vocalization plays a pivotal role in communicating infant mood to parents and thereby motivating parenting responses. Although many psychological and neural responses to infant vocalization have been reported, few studies have examined maternal approach-avoidance behavior in response to infant vocalization. Thus, this research sought to determine how infant emotional vocalization affects maternal behavior. Twenty mothers participated in this behavioral study, all of whom had infants of 24 months old or less. In the experiment, they stood on a Balance Board that collected real-time data regarding center of pressure (COP), while listening to a series of infant vocalizations including cry, laugh, and babbling. They then listened to the same vocalizations for a second time and rated their felt emotions in response to each vocalization. The participants demonstrated significant postural movements of approaching in response to cry stimuli or to stimuli regarded as highly urgent. In contrast, they demonstrated postural movement of avoidance in response to laugh vocalization. These findings suggest that parenting behavior in response to infant emotional vocalization is regulated not by the pleasant-unpleasant axis but by the urgency of the stimulus.

We propose a method which can discriminate hand motions in this paper. We measure an electromyogram (EMG) of wrist by using 8 dry type sensors. We focus on four motions, such as "Rock-Scissors-Paper" and "Neutral". "Neutral" is a state that does not do anything. In the proposed method, we apply fast Fourier transformation (FFT) to measured EMG data, and then remove a hum noise. Next, we combine values of sensors based on a Gaussian function. In this Gaussian function, variance and mean are 0.2 and 0, respectively. We then apply normalization by linear transformation to the values. Subsequently, we resize the values into the range from -1 to 1. Finally, a support vector machine (SVM) conducts learning and discrimination to classify them. We conducted experiments with seven subjects. Average of discrimination accuracy was 89.8%. In the previous method, the discrimination accuracy was 77.1%. Therefore, the proposed method is better in accuracy than the previous method. In future work, we will conduct an experiment which discriminates Japanese Janken of a subject who is not learned.

Many studies have explored risk factors for child maltreatment, but little research has focused on situational risk factors such as cognitive load, which involves within-individual fluctuation. The current study sought to determine whether cognitive load led to within-individual changes in intention in response to infant crying. The study also sought to ascertain whether state empathy, empathic concern (EC), and personal distress mediated or moderated this relationship. Sixty-six participants completed a memory task (remembering meaningless, two- or eight-letter, English alphabet string), during which they were required to keep these letters in mind while hearing infant crying (or a tone). Subsequently, participants rated questions concerning state empathy and intention in response to the crying (i.e., intentions involving caregiving, neglect, or physical abuse). Results showed that cognitive load reduced caregiving intention and increased intention to perpetrate neglect. In addition, EC mediated the relationship between cognitive load and intention to provide care or perpetrate neglect. Moreover, cognitive load interacted with state empathy to predict intention to provide care or perpetrate neglect. These findings highlighted the importance of focusing on situational cognitive risk factors for child maltreatment and elucidated the role of state empathy as a mediator or moderator in child maltreatment research.