Prenatal DHA supplementation and infant attention.

BACKGROUND: Results of randomized trials on the effects of prenatal docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) on infant cognition are mixed, but most trials have used global standardized outcomes, which may not be sensitive to effects of DHA on specific cognitive domains. METHODS: Women were randomized to 600 mg/d DHA or a placebo for the last two trimesters of pregnancy. Infants of these mothers were then followed on tests of visual habituation at 4, 6, and 9 mo of age. RESULTS: DHA supplementation did not affect look duration or habituation parameters but infants of supplemented mothers maintained high levels of sustained attention (SA) across the first year; SA declined for the placebo group. The supplemented group also showed significantly reduced attrition on habituation tasks, especially at 6 and 9 mo. CONCLUSION: The findings support with the suggestion that prenatal DHA may positively affect infants' attention and regulation of state.

Your Eyes Say "No," But Your Heart Says "Yes": Behavioral and Psychophysiological Indices in Infant Quantitative Processing.

Behavioral indices (e.g., infant looking) are predominantly used in studies of infant cognition, but psychophysiological measures have been increasingly integrated into common infant paradigms. The current study reports a result in which behavioral measures and physiological measures were both incorporated in a task designed to study infant number discrimination. Seven-month-old infants were habituated to several sets of stimuli varying in object type, but of a constant numerical value (either 2 or 3 items). Although looking time to each of the test trials revealed no differences, differences in heart-rate defined measures of attention revealed infants' ability to discriminate number. These findings imply that the inclusion of indices other than behavioral measures should become commonplace in studies of infant cognition.

Infants' integration of featural and numerical information.

The current study examined the integration of non-numerical (featural) and numerical information in 9-, 11-, and 13-month-old infants' performance on a number discrimination task. Infants were habituated to pictures of objects (e.g., bowl, shoe) either in groups of two or three. In the test phase, infants saw both new and old objects in both groups of two and three. Nine-month-old infants discriminated number independent of the familiarity of the object, 11-month-old infants discriminated between familiar and novel objects (but not the number of objects), and 13-month-old infants discriminated between the familiar and novel objects only in the context of a familiar number of objects. These data suggest that early number representations are dissociated from featural information, and that the integration of these stimulus properties is a developmental process that occurs across the first year.

Motivational Influences on Cognitive Performance in Children: Focus Over Fit.

Cognitive psychologists have begun to address how motivational factors influence adults' performance on cognitive tasks. However, little research has examined how different motivational factors interact with one another to affect behavior across the lifespan. The current study examined how children perform on a classification task when placed in a regulatory fit or mismatch. Nine-year-old children performed a classification task in which they either gained or lost points for each response. Additionally, children were given either a global promotion focus (trying to earn a gift card) or a prevention focus (trying to avoid losing a gift card). Previous work indicates that adults in this task tend to perform better when there is a match (or fit) between the overall incentive to earn or avoid losing the incentive and the task reward structure to maximize points gained or minimize points lost. Unlike adults, nine-year-olds perform better in the promotion condition than in the prevention condition regardless of task reward structure. Possible explanations for the differences between adults' and children's performance are discussed as well as possible applications for academic settings.