Having a child may improve a woman’s memory, a new study suggests.
In the study, women who were new mothers scored better on tests of visuospatial memory – the ability to understand and remember information about their surroundings—pared with women who didn’t have children.
The findings contradicts the old belief that women develop“baby brain or a decline in memory and cognitive(认知的) function, after they have kids, said study researcher Melissa Santiago, a doctoral student at Carlos Albizu University in Miami. “You don’t have to feel that because you have kids, your memory isn’t the same, Santiago said.
The study was small, and the findings will have to be tested in larger groups of people, Santiago said.
Previous studies on the topic have had mixed results—some showed motherhood hurts cognition, and others showed the opposite. Studies on rats show those with pups have better memory than those without offspring.
Santiago analyzed information from 35 first-time mothers whose children were ages 10 to 24 months, and 35 women who had never been pregnant. Both groups scored similarly on intelligence tests. The average age of mothers was 29 and the average age of never-pregnant women was 27.
To test visuospatial memory, the women were shown a paper containing six symbols for 10 seconds, and then asked to draw what they remembered. This task was repeated several times. The first time women were shown the paper, both groups remembered about the same amount. But on the second and third pass, mothers performed better than those without children, indicating that the mothers collected more information each time than the other women.
Later, the women were shown a variety of different symbols, and asked to remember which ones were presented on the earlier task. Mothers did not make a mistake in this task—they remembered every symbol correctly—but those without children made one or two errors, Santiago said.
【小题1】 How did Santiago lead to the findings?
A．By observation.
B．By parison.
C．By analyzing intelligence tests.
D．By asking women questions.
【小题2】By saying “The study was small, what did Santiago mean?
A．The study received little attention.
B．The study has just started.
C．The study was carried out among a small group of people.
D．A small group of researchers were involved in the study.
【小题3】Which of the following was discussed in the text?
A．Ways to test visuospatial memory.
B．Why having kids improves memory.
C．How young mothers are different from never-pregnant women.
D．The negative effects that worries of women without children have.
【小题4】 It can be inferred that Santiago believe the findings of the study .
A．may cause a heated discussion among parents
B．may cause an increase in the birth rate
C．are tested by previous similar studies
D．are encouraging news for mothers
B
网友回答
(答案→)B
解析：研究人员Santiago通过对比试验表明，有孩子的妈妈和没有孩子的女性比起来，视觉空间的记忆力不会减少而且会增强。
【小题1】推理题：从第五段的句子：可知Santiago 做研究的时候是将第一次做妈妈的妇女和从未做过妈妈的妇女做比较，所以是通过对比得出发现的，选B
【小题2】细节题：从第四段的句子：The study was small, and the findings will have to be tested in larger groups of people, Santiago said. 可知Santiago说这个实验很小，需要在更大的群体中做研究。选C。
【小题3】细节题：从第二段的句子：In the study, women who were new mothers scored better on tests of visuospatial memory – the ability to understand and remember information about their surroundings可知在这篇文章中讨论是检验视觉空间记忆力的方法，选A
【小题4】推理题：从第三段的句子：“You don’t have to feel that because you have kids, your memory isn’t the same, Santiago said.可知这项研究对有孩子的妈妈来说，因为有了孩子记忆力增加，是个好消息。选D。