Women unconsciously tune into infant distress, regardless of parental status, study finds

A new study published in Biological Psychology has found that women—whether they are mothers or not—are more likely to have their attention captured by distressed infant faces, even when those faces are presented so briefly that they are not consciously perceived. Using eye-tracking technology and subliminal exposure to emotional facial expressions, the researchers discovered that sad baby faces triggered longer reaction times than both happy baby faces and sad adult faces. These results suggest that the human brain may automatically prioritize signs of infant distress, highlighting an unconscious attentional bias that could support caregiving behavior.

While previous studies have shown that overt, visible cues from babies—such as facial expressions or cries—readily capture adults’ attention and provoke nurturing behavior, it remained unknown whether this effect would extend to subliminal cues. The research team aimed to determine whether distressed infant faces could influence attention even when they were processed below the threshold of awareness. They also sought to explore whether parental experience modulates this unconscious response.

“We were fascinated by the idea that certain emotional signals—like a baby’s cry or sad face—might be so evolutionarily important that our brain picks up on them even when we’re not consciously aware of them. We wanted to understand whether this unconscious sensitivity applies specifically to sad baby faces, which may be particularly relevant for caregiving behavior. Moreover, we wanted to understand if such sensitivity was specific for mothers,” said study author Elena Guida, a psychotherapist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Milano-Bicocca

The study included 114 women, divided into two groups: 57 mothers of infants between three and seven months old, and 57 women who had never given birth. Participants were between 20 and 43 years old, and were matched for depressive symptoms and screened for neurological or medical conditions. All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and gave informed consent before taking part in the study.

To examine unconscious attention to infant faces, the researchers used a visual disengagement task combined with an eye-tracker device. In each trial, participants were asked to fixate on a cross in the center of a screen, after which a subliminal emotional face—either a happy or sad baby or adult face—was shown for just 17 milliseconds. This exposure duration is considered to be below the threshold for conscious awareness.

Immediately following the subliminal image, a colored post-mask appeared, and participants had to quickly shift their gaze toward one of three colored squares displayed at the bottom of the screen. The correct square matched the color of the mask, and the time it took for participants to redirect their gaze—known as saccadic latency—served as a measure of how strongly their attention was captured by the subliminal face.

Each participant completed 96 randomized trials across four blocks. The faces used in the experiment were carefully selected from validated databases and pre-screened to ensure that their emotional expressions were easily recognizable and consistent in intensity and valence. All images were standardized for luminance and contrast to eliminate low-level visual differences that could confound the results.

The researchers analyzed the reaction times using a statistical model that accounted for group differences, face age (baby vs. adult), and facial emotion (happy vs. sad). Neither age nor anxiety levels significantly influenced the results, so these variables were excluded from the final model to maintain statistical power.

The findings revealed a significant interaction between face age and emotion. Specifically, participants took longer to disengage their attention after viewing a subliminal sad baby face compared to both happy baby faces and sad adult faces. This pattern was observed across all participants, with no statistically significant differences between mothers and non-mothers. On average, the delay in disengagement was about 16 to 18 milliseconds when participants were exposed to a subliminal sad infant face.

These results suggest that distressed baby faces automatically draw more of women’s attention, even when they are not consciously seen. The prolonged saccadic latencies imply that the brain allocates more cognitive resources to processing sad baby faces compared to other emotional expressions. This unconscious attentional bias appears to be specific to the combination of infant features and negative emotional expression, rather than simply the presence of sadness or the baby face alone.

“Our findings suggest that women are unconsciously more sensitive to sad baby faces compared to other emotional expressions and to adult faces,” Guida told PsyPost. “This indicates that the brain may prioritize processing cues of infant distress even without conscious awareness, highlighting the deep biological roots of caregiving and empathy.”

Interestingly, parental status did not significantly affect this unconscious attentional response. Although previous studies have found that mothers sometimes show heightened sensitivity to infant cues, especially when they are clearly visible, this study suggests that the brain’s automatic response to infant distress may operate independently of maternal experience. The researchers propose that this unconscious bias may reflect a deep-seated biological preparedness that promotes caregiving behavior in response to infant vulnerability.

“What surprised us was the absence of a group effect between mothers and non-mothers,” Guida said. “Both groups showed stronger unconscious processing of sad baby faces, while other expressions—such as happy or neutral baby faces, or sad adult faces—did not elicit the same response. This points to a very specific and possibly hardwired mechanism that prioritizes infant distress cues, likely rooted in evolutionary pressures related to infant survival.”

The researchers also emphasize that this study is among the first to demonstrate an attentional bias toward infant faces at the subliminal level. Most previous work has focused on conscious, voluntary attention to emotional infant faces, leaving it unclear whether similar effects occur without conscious perception. By adapting a gaze-based attentional disengagement paradigm, this study sheds light on how subtle cues can influence behavior through unconscious channels, potentially serving as an early-warning system that prepares caregivers to respond to infant needs.

However, the study has several limitations that should be addressed in future research. First, it focused exclusively on women, leaving open the question of whether similar unconscious attentional biases occur in men or fathers. Understanding how gender and parental experience interact in processing infant cues would provide a more comprehensive picture of caregiving behavior. Second, the study only compared sad and happy facial expressions, without exploring other negative emotions such as fear or anger. Investigating a wider range of emotions could help clarify whether the observed attentional bias is specific to sadness or reflects a general sensitivity to infant distress.

Despite these limitations, the study opens the door to new research directions. “Our long-term goal is to expand this research to include male participants, systematically investigating the role of parental status,” Guida explained. “In the future, we’re particularly interested in examining clinical populations—such as individuals with depressive symptoms or other affective disorders—to explore whether and how these traits impact the subliminal processing of infant signals. This could help us better understand vulnerabilities in caregiving responses and inform early intervention strategies.”

“This study is part of a broader project aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying sensitive parenting. In particular, we’re focusing on the attentional and physiological processes that shape how caregivers perceive and respond to infant cues. By exploring both conscious and unconscious responses, we hope to shed light on the foundations of caregiving behavior and how they may vary across individuals and contexts.”

The study, “Baby don’t cry: Unconscious sensitivity to sad baby faces,” was authored by E. Guida, M. Addabbo, and C. Turati.