The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility

Stressful and inconsistent parent-child interactions, as a result of maternal unresponsiveness and distress, have been shown to have an adverse impact on infants’ cognitive flexibility (CF). Given the prevalence of post-natal anxiety (PNA), this present study aims to investigate the impact of PNA on...

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Main Author: Tan, Racheal
Other Authors: Victoria Leong
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163982
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1639822023-03-05T15:42:48Z The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility Tan, Racheal Victoria Leong School of Social Sciences VictoriaLeong@ntu.edu.sg Social sciences::Psychology Stressful and inconsistent parent-child interactions, as a result of maternal unresponsiveness and distress, have been shown to have an adverse impact on infants’ cognitive flexibility (CF). Given the prevalence of post-natal anxiety (PNA), this present study aims to investigate the impact of PNA on the development of CF among infants within a Singaporean context. Hypothesis: It is hypothesized that higher levels of maternal PNA is associated with lower levels of infants’ CF. Methods: The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Sequential Touching Task (STT) and the Objective Discrimination and Reversal Learning (ODRL) task were utilized. STAI was completed by mothers and scores were used as measurement of maternal PNA. For STT, infants were presented with toys of different shapes and compressibility for two rounds of free play, with a demonstrate phase of the toy’s compressibility in between. Infants’ mean run length were used as measurement of CF. In ODRL, infants went through a discrimination learning phase and reversal learning phase. One out of two stimuli presented was positively reinforced and was switched across the two phases. Infants’ proportion of correct reaches were used as a measurement of CF. Results: While correlations were nonsignificant, overall positive trends were noted between variables of interest, suggesting that a higher level of maternal PNA is associated with higher levels of infant’s CF. Discussion: Findings did not support the hypothesis due to low statistical power from a small sample size and other limitations. Future research can refine on the present study with more participants and adjustments. Bachelor of Arts in Psychology 2022-12-28T00:11:31Z 2022-12-28T00:11:31Z 2022 Final Year Project (FYP) Tan, R. (2022). The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant Cognitive flexibility. Final Year Project (FYP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163982 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163982 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Social sciences::Psychology
spellingShingle Social sciences::Psychology
Tan, Racheal
The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility
description Stressful and inconsistent parent-child interactions, as a result of maternal unresponsiveness and distress, have been shown to have an adverse impact on infants’ cognitive flexibility (CF). Given the prevalence of post-natal anxiety (PNA), this present study aims to investigate the impact of PNA on the development of CF among infants within a Singaporean context. Hypothesis: It is hypothesized that higher levels of maternal PNA is associated with lower levels of infants’ CF. Methods: The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Sequential Touching Task (STT) and the Objective Discrimination and Reversal Learning (ODRL) task were utilized. STAI was completed by mothers and scores were used as measurement of maternal PNA. For STT, infants were presented with toys of different shapes and compressibility for two rounds of free play, with a demonstrate phase of the toy’s compressibility in between. Infants’ mean run length were used as measurement of CF. In ODRL, infants went through a discrimination learning phase and reversal learning phase. One out of two stimuli presented was positively reinforced and was switched across the two phases. Infants’ proportion of correct reaches were used as a measurement of CF. Results: While correlations were nonsignificant, overall positive trends were noted between variables of interest, suggesting that a higher level of maternal PNA is associated with higher levels of infant’s CF. Discussion: Findings did not support the hypothesis due to low statistical power from a small sample size and other limitations. Future research can refine on the present study with more participants and adjustments.
author2 Victoria Leong
author_facet Victoria Leong
Tan, Racheal
format Final Year Project
author Tan, Racheal
author_sort Tan, Racheal
title The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility
title_short The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility
title_full The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility
title_fullStr The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility
title_full_unstemmed The impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility
title_sort impact of maternal post-natal anxiety on infant cognitive flexibility
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2022
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163982
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