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Greater caregiving risk, better infant memory performance?
Author(s) -
RifkinGraboi Anne,
Quan Jeffry,
Richmond Jenny,
Goh Shaun Kok Yew,
Sim Lit Wee,
Chong Yap Seng,
Bureau JeanFrancois,
Chen Helen,
Qiu Anqi
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
hippocampus
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.767
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1098-1063
pISSN - 1050-9631
DOI - 10.1002/hipo.22949
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , developmental psychology , cognition , neuroimaging , anxiety , maternal sensitivity , clinical psychology , neuroscience , psychiatry , paleontology , biology
Poor early life care often relates to cognitive difficulties. However, newer work suggests that in early‐life, adversity may associate with enhanced or accelerated neurodevelopment. We examine associations between postnatal caregiving risks (i.e., higher self‐reported postnatal‐anxiety and lower observed maternal sensitivity) and infant relational memory (i.e., via deferred imitation and relational binding). Using subsamples of 67–181 infants (aged 433–477 post‐conceptual days, or roughly five to seven months since birth) taking part in the GUSTO study, we found such postnatal caregiving risk significantly predictive of “better” performance on a relational binding task following a brief delay, after Bonferroni adjustments. Subsequent analyses suggest that the association between memory and these risks may specifically be apparent among infants spending at least 50% of their waking hours in the presence of their mothers. Our findings echo neuroimaging research concerning similar risk exposure and larger infant hippocampal volume, and likewise underscore the importance of considering developmental context in understanding early life experience. With this in mind, these findings caution against the use of cognitive outcomes as indices of experienced risk.