Pre-term infants slower than full-terms at processing i...( earch by Rose and colleagues on pre-ter...),Health

earch by Rose and colleagues on pre-term/full-term differences in infant recognition memory with studies that show that pre-term infants need more time than full-terms to encode a stimulus well enough to recognize it. "It appears that although pre-terms are as quick as full-terms to orient to a change in their environment, they're slower at encoding what they see," said Dr. Rose.

Previous research has also indicated that a number of the medical risks suffered by pre-terms have an effect on processing speed. "The detrimental effect of respiratory distress syndrome and other conditions involving insufficient oxygen (hypoxic-ischemic events) on infant information processing speed is consistent with earlier data showing that these same medical risk factors adversely affect visual recognition memory in infancy," according to the authors.

"It is not surprising to find that both processing speed and visual recognition memory are vulnerable to the same perinatal (around the time of birth) risk factors. There is evidence both that recognition memory is mediated by the hippocampus and that hypoxic-ischemic events selectively damage the hippocampus." The findings raise the possibility that these factors affect areas of the hippocampus important to the encoding phase of recognition memory.

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Contact: David Partenheimer
dpartenheimer@apa.org
202-336-5706
American Psychological Association
10-Nov-2002

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