Perception of infant crying has been linked to the brain regions that are activated with stress and conflict monitoring, such as the anterior cingulate and amygdala. Whether the stress of cry perception affects cognitive processes is heretofore unknown. This research combines an experimental paradigm of an unsoothable infant cry task (Donovan, Leavitt, & Taylor, 2005) with a series of Rejection Stroop tasks (Dandeneau & Baldwin, 2004) with the expectation that perception of infant distress would deplete neural resources underlying the regulation of attention. Two studies were conducted on non-parent young adults and two studies were conducted on mothers of infants. Results indicated that the cry task causes negative affect and cognitive interference in non-parent young adults to a greater extent than does a musical stimulus, and that mothers of infants experience negative affect and cognitive interference comparable to the non-parent young adults.

Perception of infant crying has been linked to the brain regions that are activated with stress and conflict monitoring, such as the anterior cingulate and amygdala. Whether the stress of cry perception affects cognitive processes is heretofore unknown. This research combines an experimental paradigm of an unsoothable infant cry task (Donovan, Leavitt, & Taylor, 2005) with a series of Rejection Stroop tasks (Dandeneau & Baldwin, 2004) with the expectation that perception of infant distress would deplete neural resources underlying the regulation of attention. Two studies were conducted on non-parent young adults and two studies were conducted on mothers of infants. Results indicated that the cry task causes negative affect and cognitive interference in non-parent young adults to a greater extent than does a musical stimulus, and that mothers of infants experience negative affect and cognitive interference comparable to the non-parent young adults.

This study investigated the mother-infant relationships of Formosan macaques (Macaca cyclopis) at the Mt. Longevity during the first 24 weeks of infants¡¦ age. The field observation took place from January to November 2002 and from April to December 2003. The total observation time recorded was 450 hours. The death rate of infant males (23.7%) was higher than that of infant females (2.8%). The death rate of infants born at the later period (41.7%) was higher than those of infant born at the earlier and the peak periods (7.7%, 8.2%). The death rate of infants from primiparous females (30.8%, 4/13) was slightly higher than that of infants from multiparous females (9.8%, 6/61, p>0.05). During the observation period, I followed 43 mother-infant dyads, but 5 infants died or disappeared, and only 38 pairs left. Mother¡Vinfant relationships in Formosan macaques were influenced by infant age and sex, matriline size and the number of immature sister of the infant. The percentages of time that mother-infant contact, sucking, mother carrying ,cradle infant, and the percentages of number that contact made by mother and mother restrain infant broken contact were decrease as infants grow older. On the other hand, the percentage of time that mother-infant distance > 1 meter and mother grooming increased as infants older. But mother reject infant contact was not affected by infant¡¦s age. Adult females spent more time carrying female than male infants when infants were one week old. Developments in jumping and eating were seen earlier in male than female infants. The percentages of time in ventro-ventral contact in mother-infant dyads decreased as the number of infants¡¦ immature sisters increased within infants¡¦ first month of age. When a mother wounded, she spent less time in contacts with her infant; however, when the infant wounded, mother¡Vinfant dyads spent more time in contacts. The data provide a better fit to the Reciprocity hypothesis because the percentage of the female (87.3%, 234/268) to take care of infants was higher than male (12.7%). The percentage of the adult female (allomother) to take care of female infants (59.0%, 79/134 ) is higher than taking care of male infants (41.0%, p<0.005 ). The percentage of the adult female that takes care of non-blood related infants (81.6%, 71/87) is considerably higher than the percentage of taking care of blood-related infants (18.4%, p<0.0001). The percentage of adult female that grabs infants roughly (87.4%, 83/95) is higher than juvenile female (7.4%, 7/95 ).