Information processing from infancy to 11 years: Continuities and prediction of IQ☆

The remarkable surge of research on infant cognition over the last 40 years or so has revealed a wide range of competencies present in the first year or two of life. Our present understanding of the infant mind belies Garrett’s view of early cognition as an amorphous general ability that only gradually breaks down into more distinct abilities (Garrett, 1946), and puts to rest William James earlier characterizations of the infant mind as a “blooming, buzzing confusion.” Today we recognize that infants exhibit a number of basic cognitive skills. They are able to distribute attention across competing stimuli, recognize and recall events, readily encode information, and abstract statistical regularities from the perceptual flux. Evidence from factor analytic studies supports the existence of discrete domain-specific abilities in the first year of life (Rose, Feldman, & Jankowski, 2004a; Rose, Feldman, & Jankowski, 2005b). Nonetheless, questions remain about the relation of infant abilities to later cognition. One question concerns the extent to which specific infant abilities are qualitatively similar to their later counterparts. At the heart of this issue is the extent to which specific infant abilities show continuity over the course of development. A second question concerns the extent to which infant abilities form the building blocks of the more global aspects of later cognitive ability. These issues are addressed in the present study by examining longitudinal relations from infancy and toddlerhood to 11 years within four domains – attention, processing speed, memory, and representational competence – and the relation of infant and toddler abilities from these domains to 11 year IQ.