The impact of stimulus type and early motherhood on attentional processing

Abstract

The present study evaluated the impact of stimulus type and early motherhood on attentional processing. Auditory ERPs were recorded with a modified novelty oddball paradigm both in mothers who had recently given birth and in control women who were not in the state of early motherhood. Conventional tone pips were used as standards and deviants, and an infant cry served as an experimental stimulus of novelty value. Differences were revealed in the N100 amplitudes between the study groups with higher amplitudes in the mothers. A few days after childbirth the mothers seemed to be in a stage with an increased level of alertness and different types of surrounding stimuli may elicit a stronger arousal response than normally, not just those directly related to the new baby. The gating and the mechanisms of further processing of stimulus information were not different in mothers from controls and seemed to guarantee normal control of stimulus-elicited cognitive load in early motherhood.

Parental reflective functioning and the neural correlates of processing infant affective cues

“…Consistent with prior research (Purhonen, Kilpeläinen-Lees, et al, 2001; Purhonen et al, 2008), we found the N100 was modulated by the content of the auditory stimuli. Specifically, the largest N100 was elicited by high-distress infant cries.…”

“…This has included ERP studies examining very early perceptual processing of infant vocalizations and facial expressions, namely the N100 and N170. With respect to infant cry perception, maternal and non-maternal samples have been exposed to infant cry and control (i.e., a word) stimuli, and the N100 elicited by these stimuli was modulated by both the nature of the stimulus (cry vs. word) and maternal status (mother vs. non-mother; (Purhonen, Kilpeläinen-Lees, et al, 2001; Purhonen, Valkonen-Korhonen, & Lehtonen, 2008)). Further, with respect to early face perception, the N170 elicited by infant faces has also showed differences by maternal status (Proverbio, Brignone, Matarazzo, Del Zotto, & Zani, 2006).…”

The Application of Electroencephalography to Investigate the Neural Bases of Parenting: A Review

“…Thus new mothers may have a heightened response to the initial detection of auditory stimuli, which is not infant specific. Taken together, these findings suggest that new mothers may have a lower perceptual threshold whereby emotional and non-emotional auditory cues elicit a greater neural response relative to non-mothers in early stimulus detection (Purhonen et al, 2008). …”

“…Converging evidence shows heightened detection and emotional response to infant auditory cues, as well as possibly increased arousal more generally to auditory stimuli when comparing parents to non-parents (Purhonen, Kilpelainen-Lees, et al, 2001; Purhonen, Paakkonen, Ypparila, Lehtonen, & Karhu, 2001; Purhonen, Valkonen-Korhonen, & Lehtonen, 2008). Purhonen, Kilpelainen-Lees, and colleagues (2001) evaluated whether the N100 differed in recent mothers and non-mothers when listening to their own infant cries (in mothers), a novel infant cry (in non-mothers), and neutral word stimuli (both groups).…”

“…Thus new mothers may have an altered perceptual sensitivity and alertness to sensory stimuli, which may signal a heightened arousal response in these women more generally. Purhonen and colleagues (2008) further explored infant cry perception in a second study, where new mothers and non-mothers were presented with infant cries and standard (frequently occurring) and deviant (infrequent) conventional tones. Again, recent mothers' N100 amplitudes were enhanced for all stimulus types compared to non-mothers; however, no differences were found for later ERP components (N200, P300).…”