研究顯示女性當媽後不會"變傻"

"Mommy brain" is a long-held perception that mothers are more forgetful and less attentive.

“媽咪腦”是一種根深蒂固的看法，即女性當了媽媽後更健忘，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.

美國珀杜大學人類學系博士生瓦萊麗·塔克·米勒稱：“然而，在大多數研究中，注意力和記憶力測試的對象是那些處於產後極早階段的女性。”她正在研究成爲母親對注意力、記憶和其他心理活動的影響。

"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."

她還說：“這沒什麼問題。當你剛有孩子時，會遇到一連串的激素和睡眠缺乏問題，這可能會影響大腦中的注意力和記憶過程。”

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.

在一項測試“媽咪腦”普遍程度的新研究中，米勒使用了改進後的注意力網絡測試（ANT）—— ANT-R，對60名母親（均處於產後一年以上）和70名非母親的反應時間進行比較。發表在網絡版美國《當代心理學》的研究結果顯示，與從未懷孕或從未生育的女性相比，媽媽們表現得同樣出色甚至更好。

"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."

她說：“在這項特別研究中，我們招募了產後一年以上的媽媽，因爲我們希望看到爲人母的長期影響。總的來說，母親與非母親的注意力沒有太大差別，因此我們發現沒有證據支持人們所謂的‘媽咪腦’。如果說有的話，那麼爲人母可能與注意力的增強而不是減弱有關。”

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.

研究報告的共同作者、珀杜大學人類學助理教授阿曼達·維爾說，這項研究採用混合方法，可能是首次探究生物學上的母性身份對現實生活中的注意力系統機能的長期影響。

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.

研究人員用7分制來爲研究對象的回答打分，調查問題包括“你感覺有多困”以及“你認爲你的注意力怎樣”等。維爾說，無論是否已爲人母，女性自認的注意力機能都與她們的注意力測試分數強烈相關。

"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."

她說：“這意味着女性對自己的認知狀態有準確的認識，應該重視她們對自己所認爲的注意力機能的擔憂。我們還認爲，‘媽咪腦’可能是一種文化現象，當母親感到壓力大、負擔過重和得不到支持時，會感到最心煩意亂和最健忘。遺憾的是，美國許多媽媽正是這種感覺，尤其是在當前的經濟和政治不穩定以及疫情期間。”