fifty - seven adults , aged between 18 and 54 years ( m = 27.16 , sd = 8.31 ) , participated in this study : 15 healthy musicians , 13 musicians with depression , 15 healthy nonmusicians , and 14 nonmusicians with depression . five participants had children , all of whom were aged more than 18 months at the time of testing . current depressive symptoms were assessed using the edinburgh postnatal depression scale ( epds ) , which has been validated for use in adults outside the postnatal period ( cox , chapman , murray , & jones , 1996 ) . symptoms of anxiety were assessed using the generalized anxiety disorder questionnaire ( gad - q ) . primary diagnosis of depression was confirmed using the structured clinical interview for dsm  iv ( scid ) . musicians  were defined as individuals who reported receiving 4 or more years of formal musical training . nonmusicians  were those who had less than 4 years musical training ( see table 1 for demographic characteristics ) . fifteen digital recordings of infant cry bursts from a database of 87 infant vocalizations were used in this study . audio recordings in this database were collected from nine infants filmed in their own homes during a play and feeding session with a caregiver . the infants were full - term , healthy , and aged between 6 and 8 months ( m = 6.7 months , sd = 0.9 ) . stimuli were independently rated by 80 participants on three dimensions : infant distress , infant mood , and participant 's mood after listening to the clip . these ratings were used to identify 15 cry vocalizations : those rated as most distressed ( on a scale of 17 : m = 5.3 , sd = 1.5 ) , with lowest infant mood ( on a scale of 19 : m = 2.6 , sd = 1.3 ) , and lowest participant mood ( on a scale of 19 : m = 2.9 , sd = 1.4 ) . these stimuli were free from background noise , matched for peak and average root - mean - square intensity , clipped to 1500 ms , and had 150-ms linear rise and fall times . we digitally altered individual cry clips to increase and decrease overall pitch by 0.25 , 0.5 , one and two semitones , using adobe audition software ( cs5.5 v4.0 ) . this corresponded to changes in fundamental frequency of approximately 510 , 1217 , 2530 , and 5060 hz , respectively ( see table 2 for mean fundamental frequencies of original and manipulated cry clips ) . clips of the same cry burst at different pitches were presented in pairs that differed by 0.5 semitones ( 0.25 vs. + 0.25 ) , one semitone ( 0.5 vs. + 0.5 ) , two semitones ( 1 vs. + 1 ) , and four semitones ( 2 vs. + 2 ) . participants listened to two clips successively and were asked to choose which cry burst  sounded more distressed . each pitch difference ( 0.5 , one , two , or four semitones ) was presented for each of the 15 vocalizations , resulting in a total of 60 trials . , www.neurobs.com ; 24-bit realtek high definition audio sound card ) through sony in - ear earphones ( mdr - ex77lp ) . to facilitate ease of responding , sounds were presented alongside an image of an unfamiliar fractal ( a fragmented geometric shape ) in one of two locations . accuracy was defined as the number of trials in which participants identified the higher - pitched clip as  more distressed .  the order of whether the correct clip was presented first or second was randomized , and the order of trials was pseudorandomized across participants by creating two versions of the task with different orders of trials . fifteen digital recordings of infant cry bursts from a database of 87 infant vocalizations were used in this study . audio recordings in this database were collected from nine infants filmed in their own homes during a play and feeding session with a caregiver . the infants were full - term , healthy , and aged between 6 and 8 months ( m = 6.7 months , sd = 0.9 ) . stimuli were independently rated by 80 participants on three dimensions : infant distress , infant mood , and participant 's mood after listening to the clip . these ratings were used to identify 15 cry vocalizations : those rated as most distressed ( on a scale of 17 : m = 5.3 , sd = 1.5 ) , with lowest infant mood ( on a scale of 19 : m = 2.6 , sd = 1.3 ) , and lowest participant mood ( on a scale of 19 : m = 2.9 , sd = 1.4 ) . these stimuli were free from background noise , matched for peak and average root - mean - square intensity , clipped to 1500 ms , and had 150-ms linear rise and fall times . we digitally altered individual cry clips to increase and decrease overall pitch by 0.25 , 0.5 , one and two semitones , using adobe audition software ( cs5.5 v4.0 ) . this corresponded to changes in fundamental frequency of approximately 510 , 1217 , 2530 , and 5060 hz , respectively ( see table 2 for mean fundamental frequencies of original and manipulated cry clips ) . clips of the same cry burst at different pitches were presented in pairs that differed by 0.5 semitones ( 0.25 vs. + 0.25 ) , one semitone ( 0.5 vs. + 0.5 ) , two semitones ( 1 vs. + 1 ) , and four semitones ( 2 vs. + 2 ) . participants listened to two clips successively and were asked to choose which cry burst  sounded more distressed . each pitch difference ( 0.5 , one , two , or four semitones ) was presented for each of the 15 vocalizations , resulting in a total of 60 trials . , www.neurobs.com ; 24-bit realtek high definition audio sound card ) through sony in - ear earphones ( mdr - ex77lp ) . to facilitate ease of responding , sounds were presented alongside an image of an unfamiliar fractal ( a fragmented geometric shape ) in one of two locations . accuracy was defined as the number of trials in which participants identified the higher - pitched clip as  more distressed . the order of whether the correct clip was presented first or second was randomized , and the order of trials was pseudorandomized across participants by creating two versions of the task with different orders of trials . figure 1 presents the percentage of correct trials at the four levels of pitch difference for each group . in general , higher pitched cry bursts were chosen as sounding  more distressed  ( percentage of correct trials , m = 62.87 , sd = 18.86 ) . overall , participants ' scores were significantly different from chance , t(56 ) = 8.82 , p < .001 , r = .76 , and each groups ' score was also significantly above chance ( p < .01 ) . at the smallest pitch difference ( 0.5 semitones ) , all participants scores were not significantly different from chance , t(56 ) = .11 , p = .91 , r = .01 . group scores increased to differing extents as the pitch difference increased , though no group were at ceiling at any level . a 4 ( pitch difference )  4 ( group ) repeated - measures anova was carried out to investigate differences between participant groups . pitch difference ( 0.5 , 1 , 2 or 4 semitones ) was the within - subjects factor , and  group ( healthy nonmusicians , healthy musicians , nonmusicians with depression or musicians with depression ) was the between - subjects factor . there were significant main effects of pitch difference , f(3 , 159 ) = 33.60 , p < .001 , np = .39 , and group , f(3 , 53 ) = 4.45 , p < .01 , np = .20 , and a significant interaction between these two factors , f(9 , 159 ) = 1.96 , p = .48 , np = .10 . as the difference in pitch increased , the mean percentage of correct trials increased ( see figure 1 ) . post hoc bonferroni pairwise comparisons demonstrated significant differences between the scores of nonmusicians with depression and healthy musicians ( p = .04 , r = .27 ) as well as between nonmusicians with depression and musicians with depression ( p = .024 , r = .30 ) . the mean score of nonmusicians with depression ( m = 56.59 , sd = 7.87 ) was lower than the mean score of healthy musicians ( m = 67.22 , sd = 11.56 ) and musicians with depression ( m = 68.33 , sd = 12.59 ) . healthy nonmusicians ' scores ( m = 59.72 , sd = 7.88 ) were not significantly different from any other group . there was a significant positive correlation of average score with years of musical training ,  = .53 , p < .001 , and no significant relationship between task score and epds score ,  = .02 , p = .42 , or between task score and gad - q score ,  = .03 , p = .37 . there were no differences in overall performance between men and women , t(55 ) = .007 , five participants in this study were parents ; a sensitivity analysis was carried out , removing these participants and the same pattern of results was observed . a repeated - measures anova was conducted with an additional group of eight nonmusicians and 11 musicians for whom epds , gad - q , and scid data were not available , but who were presumed to be healthy . the analysis found the same significant main effects of pitch , f(3 , 216 ) = 46.74 , p < .001 , np = .39 , and group , f(3 , 72 ) = 6.98 , p < .001 , np = .23 , and a significant interaction between pitch and group , f(9 , 216 ) = 2.26 , p = .020 , np = .09 . general task performance was also assessed using response latencies which were found to be similar across groups ( healthy nonmusicians m = 1.02 , sd = .45 ; healthy musicians m = .72 , sd = .30 ; nonmusicians with depression , m = .65 , sd = .32 ; musicians with depression , m = .83 , sd = .38 ) . a one - way anova of log - transformed median response latencies demonstrated no significant differences across groups , f(3 , 56 ) = 2.76 , p > .05 , np = .14 . in a group of individuals with depression , those with musical training demonstrated enhanced discriminative acuity of distress in infant cry bursts compared to those with no musical training . this association was not demonstrated in healthy individuals with differing levels of musical training ; all healthy participants had levels of discriminative acuity comparable to that of the musicians with depression . we suggest that previous musical training may help to maintain discriminative acuity of distress ( as signaled by pitch ) in infant cry bursts in the context of depression . this novel finding has potential implications for the study of factors that may protect against disruptions to caregiving behavior associated with depression . consistent with previous studies ( schuetze & zeskind , 2001 ) , we demonstrated that pitch is reliably perceived as an indicator of distress in infant cries . however , unlike donovan and colleagues ( 1998 ) , we did not find that depression alone predicted discriminative acuity of pitch / distress in infant cries . in the current study , only individuals with depression and no musical training demonstrated lowered discriminative acuity compared with healthy musicians . previous studies investigating the enhanced perceptual abilities of musicians have used much stricter criteria such as  at least 10 years , starting before age 5 , with at least 4 hr practice each week for the last 10 years  ( musacchia , sams , skoe , & kraus , 2007 ) . the cutoff used in this study was chosen to reflect a more common level of musical training in the general population . our findings in relatively inexperienced musicians suggest that even some level of musical training can help to maintain discriminative acuity for acoustic features of infant vocalizations in individuals with depression . alternative explanations for these results is that participants with depression were less able to interpret high - pitched cries as reflecting distress or to label emotional cues appropriately . interpretation biases are a common feature of depression , but in general , individuals with depression tend to rate emotional stimuli more negatively than healthy individuals do ( e.g. , punkanen , eerola , & erkkila , 2011 ; stein et al . , therefore , it seems improbable that negative interpretation bias disrupts the ability to label high - pitched cries as sounding distressed . the design of the task meant that participants were not explicitly asked to label a cry as distressed , but instead to choose which of two cries sounded more distressed . it seems unlikely that the results observed are related purely to an inability to label emotional cues appropriately . a further possible explanation of our results is that poorer accuracy on the discriminative acuity task was related to diminished overall performance in individuals with depression . given that there were no differences on response latencies between groups of participants , this interpretation seems less plausible . first , does this pattern of results translate into behavioral differences in mother  infant interactions ? depression has been shown to disrupt maternal responses to infant vocal cues , but it is not known whether previous musical training may mitigate this disruption . future studies assessing whether there is an association between musical training and sensitivity to vocal cues in actual mother  infant interactions are important to clarify this issue . second , is it possible to train individuals with depression to interpret infant vocal cues more effectively ? simple interventions targeting phonological perception and awareness in children with dyslexia have been shown to be highly effective in improving related language skills ( e.g. , bradley & bryant , 1983 ) . similar training focused on perception and awareness of acoustic features of vocalizations could improve a parent 's ability to interpret their infant 's vocal cues . the strength of this type of intervention is that it could be carried out during pregnancy , before parents have any experience of interacting with their infant . recent studies have demonstrated that it is possible to improve individuals ' performance on pitch discrimination tasks following 30-min training sessions ( amitay , irwin , & moore , 2006 ) . however , whether this improvement can generalize to other settings remains under debate ( wright & zhang , 2009 ) and may not afford the same long - term advantages as more sustained exposure to musical training . it remains to be seen whether similar findings would be observed in  cross - modal  settings , combining cues from faces , voices , and gestures . the findings of this study were derived from a group of individuals with depression , not specifically occurring in the postnatal period . it may be the case that increased exposure to infant vocalizations improves an individual 's performance on this task . it would be important to examine similar questions in a group of individuals with postnatal depression . similarly , it would be of great interest to investigate how this perceptual discrimination relates to specific caregiving behavior , such as imitation of vocal cues , and to attachment status in individuals with and without depression and musical training .
an infant 's cry is one of the most emotionally salient sounds in our environment . 
 depression is known to disrupt a mother 's ability to respond to her infant , but it is not well - understood why such difficulties arise . 
 one reason might be that depression disrupts the perceptual abilities necessary to interpret infant 's affective cues . given that musicians are known to have enhanced auditory perception , we assessed whether depression and previous musical training can impact on the ability to interpret distress in infant cries , as manipulated by changes in pitch . 
 depressed participants with musical training demonstrated better discriminative acuity of distress in infant cry bursts compared to those without . 
 non - depressed participants , with and without musical training , had levels comparable to musicians with depression . 
 we suggest that previous musical training may act as a protective factor that maintains auditory perceptual abilities in the context of depression . 
 these findings have potential implications for the development of novel training interventions to maintain sensitivity to infant vocal cues in individuals with postnatal depression .