Detecting the temporal structure of sound sequences in newborn infants

• Newborn infants are sensitive to temporal properties of stimulus trains.
• Newborn infants detect presentation rate changes.
• Newborn infants show perceptual capabilities that allow temporal coordination in dialogue situations.

Most high-level auditory functions require one to detect the onset and offset of sound sequences as well as registering the rate at which sounds are presented within the sound trains. By recording event-related brain potentials to onsets and offsets of tone trains as well as to changes in the presentation rate, we tested whether these fundamental auditory capabilities are functional at birth. Each of these events elicited significant event-related potential components in sleeping healthy neonates. The data thus demonstrate that the newborn brain is sensitive to these acoustic features suggesting that infants are geared towards the temporal aspects of segregating sound sources, speech and music perception already at birth.