Identification of Different Infant Cries Based on Auditory Sensitivity of Homosexual and Heterosexual College Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/ajhp.v4i2.7730Keywords:
Caregiving Diversity, Infant Cry Recognition, LGBTQ+ Parenting, Parental Responsiveness, SDG 3:Good Health Well-beingAbstract
Infant crying functions as a biologically significant communicative signal through which infants convey physiological and emotional needs to caregivers. Guided by Gender Schema, Attachment Theory and caregiving sensitivity frameworks, this study investigated differences in infant cry recognition accuracy between homosexual and heterosexual college students within the Philippine context. Specifically, the study examined respondents’ ability to identify six categories of infant cries: hunger, discomfort, pain, fear, anger, and attention-seeking. A quasi-experimental quantitative between-subjects design was employed involving 100 college students composed of 50 homosexual and 50 heterosexual respondents selected through purposive sampling. Participants were exposed to six pre-recorded infant cry stimuli in a controlled experimental setting and identified the corresponding cry categories using a structured response instrument. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Mann–Whitney U test following non-normality assumptions. Results revealed a statistically significant difference in overall infant cry recognition accuracy between homosexual and heterosexual respondents, with homosexual respondents demonstrating higher overall recognition scores. Significant differences specifically emerged in hunger and fear cries, whereas no statistically significant differences were observed for discomfort, pain, anger, and attention-seeking cries. The findings suggest that infant cry recognition may reflect variations in emotional attunement, empathic sensitivity, and perceptual responsiveness associated with psychosocial and experiential factors rather than biologically fixed caregiving mechanisms. The study contributes to emerging literature on caregiving diversity, emotional processing, and infant cue recognition while providing preliminary evidence relevant to developmental psychology and LGBTQ+ family research within Southeast Asian contexts.
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