Cognition in Pregnancy: Perceptions and Performance, 2005-2006

Pregnant women consistently report that their memory and attention abilities become worse during pregnancy. However, their perception of changes is not well supported by comparisons of performance between pregnant and non-pregnant women on laboratory cognitive tasks. The aim of this project was to investigate two possible reasons for this discrepancy. The first possibility is that there are real changes but these are so mild that they are usually only noticeable in complex everyday situations and are rarely demonstrable in the simple tasks typically used to examine the effects of pregnancy on cognition. The second possibility is that there are no actual changes and the perception of worsening ability arises from a negative stereotype which makes pregnant women more aware of the kinds of cognitive slips everyone makes which are then attributed to pregnancy. <br> <br> The project comprised three studies. The possibility that there are real but subtle changes in cognition was examined in Study 1 by comparing the performance of 50 first-time pregnant women in middle and late pregnancy and 25 non-pregnant, childless women on a range of sensitive cognitive tests using familiar everyday scenarios, and in Study 3 by comparing the performance of 13 pregnant women with that of 17 non-pregnant, childless women on two cognitively complex driving simulation tasks. All women also provided self-ratings of cognitive changes. Study 2 investigated the existence of a social stereotype: 99 female and 55 male participants with immediate experience of pregnancy (pregnant women and their partners), and 100 female and 100 male participants with little experience of pregnancy rated the likelihood of cognitive and other changes women may experience during pregnancy.<br> <br>