The term “mommy brain” refers to the belief that new mothers are forgetful and inattentive.
Researchers at Purdue University tested reaction times of 60 mothers who had given birth at least one year prior to the experiment.
They compared the scores against 70 women without children.
The idea was to test three types of cognitive abilities: the brain’s ability to prepare for incoming stimuli (alerting abilities); the brain’s ability to pay attention to new stimuli (orienting abilities); and the brain’s ability to resolve conflicting information (executive control).
The researchers found no difference in reaction times between the two groups, suggesting that mothers and non-mothers have similar attentiveness. Even though mothers were, on average, 10 years older than non-mothers, they also had similar alerting and orienting abilities and better executive control.
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