“一孕傻三年”？研究显示女性当妈后不会“变傻”

人们常说，“一孕傻三年”，但女性当了妈妈后真的会更健忘，注意力更差吗？研究显示，当了妈妈不会让注意力持续减退，这种说法并不准确。

 Photo by Leah Kelley from Pexels "Mommy brain" is a long-held perception that mothers are more forgetful and less attentive.
“妈咪脑”是一种根深蒂固的看法，即女性当了妈妈后更健忘，注意力更差。

"In most studies, however, attention and memory tests are given to mothers very early postpartum," said Valerie Tucker Miller, a Ph.D. student in Purdue University's Department of Anthropology department. Miller is studying the effects of motherhood on attention, memory and other psychological processes.
美国珀杜大学人类学系博士生瓦莱丽·塔克·米勒称：“然而，在大多数研究中，注意力和记忆力测试的对象是那些处于产后极早阶段的女性。”她正在研究成为母亲对注意力、记忆和其他心理活动的影响。

"There are few issues with that," she added. "When you first have a child, you have a cascade of hormones and sleep deprivation that might be affecting attention and memory processes in the brain."
她还说：“这没什么问题。当你刚有孩子时，会遇到一连串的激素和睡眠缺乏问题，这可能会影响大脑中的注意力和记忆过程。”

In a new study testing the prevalence of "mommy brain," Miller used a revised version of the Attention Network Test (ANT), called the ANT-R, to compare reaction times among 60 mothers, all of whom were at least one year postpartum, and 70 non-mothers. The results, published online in the journal Current Psychology, show that mothers performed equally as well or better compared with women who had never been pregnant or had children.
在一项测试“妈咪脑”普遍程度的新研究中，米勒使用了改进后的注意力网络测试（ANT）—— ANT-R，对60名母亲（均处于产后一年以上）和70名非母亲的反应时间进行比较。发表在网络版美国《当代心理学》的研究结果显示，与从未怀孕或从未生育的女性相比，妈妈们表现得同样出色甚至更好。

"For this particular study, we recruited moms who were past that first year postpartum because we wanted to see the long-term effects of maternity," she said. "Overall, moms did not have significantly different attention than non-mothers, so we did not find evidence to support 'mommy brain' as our culture understands it. It's possible, if anything, that maternity is related to improved, rather than diminished, attentiveness."
她说：“在这项特别研究中，我们招募了产后一年以上的妈妈，因为我们希望看到为人母的长期影响。总的来说，母亲与非母亲的注意力没有太大差别，因此我们发现没有证据支持人们所谓的‘妈咪脑’。如果说有的话，那么为人母可能与注意力的增强而不是减弱有关。”

Co-author Amanda Veile, an assistant professor of anthropology at Purdue, said the mixed-method study may be the first to investigate the long-term effects of biological motherhood on real-life attention network functioning. Lisa A. VanWormer, a Purdue University alumna and visiting associate professor of psychology at St. Norbert College, also is a co-author.
研究报告的共同作者、珀杜大学人类学助理教授阿曼达·维尔说，这项研究采用混合方法，可能是首次探究生物学上的母性身份对现实生活中的注意力系统机能的长期影响。

Researchers used a seven-point scale to measure participants' responses to survey questions such as, "How sleepy do you feel?" and "How do you think your attentiveness is?" Women's perceived attention functioning was strongly associated with their tested attention scores, regardless of motherhood status, Veile said.
研究人员用7分制来为研究对象的回答打分，调查问题包括“你感觉有多困”以及“你认为你的注意力怎样”等。维尔说，无论是否已为人母，女性自认的注意力机能都与她们的注意力测试分数强烈相关。

"This means that women have accurate awareness of their cognitive state, and that their concerns regarding their perceived attention functioning should be taken seriously," she said. "We also believe that 'mommy-brain' may be a culture-bound phenomenon, and that mothers will feel the most distracted and forgetful when they feel stressed, overextended and unsupported. Unfortunately, many U.S. moms feel this way, especially now in the midst of economic and political instability and pandemic."
她说：“这意味着女性对自己的认知状态有准确的认识，应该重视她们对自己所认为的注意力机能的担忧。我们还认为，‘妈咪脑’可能是一种文化现象，当母亲感到压力大、负担过重和得不到支持时，会感到最心烦意乱和最健忘。遗憾的是，美国许多妈妈正是这种感觉，尤其是在当前的经济和政治不稳定以及疫情期间。”