From some fetal learning to a transnational psychology

In the humanities in general and psychology in particular, a research is rarely considered to be decisive in that it forces researchers to change generally accepted theoretical positions. Such is the case, for example, of Kohler's problem situations, which indicate the existence of representations in chimpanzee, or of Piaget's hidden object search situations. The research published by DeCasper and Fifer (1980), supplemented by those that followed, is among those few. These experiments show the existence of a pre-birth learning of characteristics of the mother's voice allowing, after birth and thus in other acoustic conditions, to differentiate this voice from an unfamiliar one. This article attempts to situate the main theoretical consequences of this discovery, which have been taken into account very insufficiently in the literature.