The aim of this study was to investigate whether human infants' cries show individually and contextually discriminable acoustic parameters. 20 full-term normal human newborns (aged 1 to 4 days) had their cries recorded during routine blood withdrawal (pain context) 30 min. before a scheduled feeding (hunger context) and when subjected to kinetic stimuli during neurological examination (manipulation context). Type of cries, melodic contours, F0 parameters, but not the "macro" trend of the start of the fundamental frequency, indicated a difference in pain cries in the other two contexts. All the acoustic features considered showed an individual specificity. The peak frequencies of voiceless or partially voiced wails had the interesting property of being optimised as long distance signals. We hypothesised that this feature of infants' cries may have evolved in a time window when the infants were left in collective nurseries and not carried on the mothers' backs as maintained by the traditional view.

Climate change involves multiple emotional expressions associated with specific labels, notably: ‘concern,’ ‘guilt,’ or ‘scepticism.’ However, there are other types of emotions that have been less analysed, such as ‘powerlessness,’ ‘anger’ and ‘confusion’ that are of equal importance for predicting behavioural changes toward this climatic issue. Likewise, few studies in this research field rely on qualitative data to understand and identify the causative agents for the emotional arousal. This research explores a range of emotions, mixing those that have been widely studied and those that have been hardly analysed. It also looks at the demographic parameters associated with such emotions using a population sample from southern Ecuador. The study analyses quantitative and qualitative data gathered through structured-questionnaires whereby participants were given agency to select and define how they themselves sense emotionally climate change. The results indicate that two of the five participants’ most selected emotions are shared with other nations (‘concern,’ ‘guilt’), while the other three have been less reported and studied in the climate change field (‘powerlessness,’ ‘anger,’ and ‘confusion’). These emotions were found to be aroused by different reasons associated with specific demographic variables. The findings reveal the role of the cultural and local environment in the emotional arousal and its relevance for designing more effective climate communication campaigns.

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