Deaf women and normal hearing subjects were compared in their ability to recognize crying behaviour of neonates after the sound of crying had been made inaudible. Four groups of subjects were studied: H older deaf women, 11 older women with normal hearing ability (both groups had previous experience with infants), 11 female and 11 male students (with no experience in infant care) . Three full term, healthy neonates were shown on a soundless videotape in three activities: -`resting', `restlessness', and `crying'. The subjects were asked to press a lever for as long as they thought that crying was taking place. The `crying' episodes were most frequently misinterpreted. The deaf group did not do significantly worse than the group of older women with normal hearing ability. Nor were there any sex differences between the two groups of students. However, experience with infants had a significant effect. The two groups of older women misinterpreted the `crying' episodes more, and misinterpreted the `restless' episodes less often than the student groups. Furthermore, the different behaviour of each of the infants caused different amounts of misjudgment in the perceivers.