Document Detail


Tonic and phasic orientation in full-term and preterm infants.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  2072084     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Thirty-three full-term infants and thirty-eight preterm infants (on average born at 30 weeks gestation) were tested for their latency to turn toward checkered stimulus patterns (phasic orienting or "attention-getting") and for the duration of their initial fixation (tonic orienting or "attention-holding"). Plotted against the logarithm of the subjects' postconceptional age, turning latency fell linearly between 36 and 120 weeks, while fixation time fell abruptly at 53 weeks. Preterm and full-term infants showed the same developmental trends, implying that both of these attentional behaviors are biologically timetabled and that neither is greatly affected by premature extrauterine experience. Unexpectedly, phasic orientation in the first 30 postnatal days was significantly faster in preterm than in full-term infants, and fixation times failed to differ. Despite the necessary functional integration of phasic and tonic orienting in mature visual scanning and attention, the present results suggest an independence in their early postnatal development and that neither is mature at birth.
Authors:
N Foreman; A Fielder; D Price; V Bowler
Related Documents :
10204124 - Serratia marcescens pseudobacteraemia in neonates associated with a contaminated blood ...
551924 - Acquisition of appetitional and palpebral conditioned reflexes by the same infants.
18192844 - Non-proteinuric pre-eclampsia: a novel risk indicator in women with gestational hyperte...
7137854 - Absorption and half-life of bovine, caprine and ovine igg1 in the newborn lamb. effect ...
21337734 - Airway angiopoietin-2 in ventilated very preterm infants: association with prenatal fac...
12774874 - The effect of ultra low dose epidural analgesia on newborn breastfeeding behaviors.
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Journal of experimental child psychology     Volume:  51     ISSN:  0022-0965     ISO Abbreviation:  J Exp Child Psychol     Publication Date:  1991 Jun 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  1991-08-22     Completed Date:  1991-08-22     Revised Date:  2009-09-29    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  2985128R     Medline TA:  J Exp Child Psychol     Country:  UNITED STATES    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  407-22     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Leicester, UK.
Export Citation:
APA/MLA Format     Download EndNote     Download BibTex
MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Arousal
Attention*
Fixation, Ocular
Gestational Age
Humans
Infant, Newborn
Infant, Premature / psychology*
Orientation*
Pattern Recognition, Visual*
Reaction Time
Grant Support
ID/Acronym/Agency:
//Wellcome Trust

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


Previous Document:  Form perception at birth: Cohen and Younger (1984) revisited.
Next Document:  The role of person and object in eliciting early imitation.