Prenatal Cognition

The human fetus in the third trimester has the capacity to process sensory information in a manner that is broadly analogous to a newborn infant. This chapter explores the types of sensory and neural processes that have been mapped in the human fetus together with the methods employed for these studies. For reasons that are self evident, some sensory systems are easier to index than others. Recent research has shown that it is possible to explore visual perception in the fetus. We review recent developments in this literature and examine the strengths of different methodological techniques including the combination of ultrasound with experimental protocols. These recent breakthroughs open up the capacity to explore cognitive development in the fetus in ways that have not been previously thought possible