MEMORY AND SPEED - THEIR ROLE IN THE RELATION OF INFANT INFORMATION-PROCESSING TO LATER IQ

This study examined the extent to which memory and processing speed ac counted for relations we had found earlier between infant information processing and childhood IQ. The measures of speed and memory were obt ained when the children were 11 years of age using paper-and-pencil ta sks and an extensive battery of computer-administered tasks. The relat ions of 7 month visual recognition memory and 1 year cross-modal trans fer to 11 year IQ were both substantially reduced with statistical con trol of factors derived from these measures. These results suggest tha t speed and memory underlie some of the infant-childhood continuities in cognition. Path and structural equation modeling indicated that the significant pathways from 7 month visual recognition memory to 11 yea r IQ were both direct and indirect, the indirect paths going through m emory and speed.