Working for the future: Parentally deprived Nigerian children have enhanced working memory ability

Abstract

The dominant view based on the deficit model of developmental psychopathology is that early adverse rearing impairs cognition. In contrast, an emerging evolutionary-developmental model argues that individuals exposed to early life stress may have improved cognitive abilities that are adapted to harsh environments. We set out to test this hypothesis by examining cognitive functions in parentally deprived children in Nigeria. Cognitive performance was compared between 53 deprived children who currently live in institutional homes and foster families and 51 non-deprived control participants. We used a multifaceted neurocognitive test battery for the assessment of inhibition, set-shifting, and working memory. Results showed that the deprived group had slower response times than the non-deprived group in the inhibition task. Conversely, the deprived group performed significantly better than the non-deprived group in the working memory task. There was no significant difference between the groups with regard to set-shifting performance. We interpret the enhanced working memory ability of the deprived group as a correlate of its ecological relevance. In Nigeria, underprivileged children may need to rely to a larger extent on working memory abilities to attain success through academic work. This study provides further evidence that exposure to early adversity does not necessarily impair cognitive functions but can even enhance it under some conditions and in some domains.

Adaptation in the face of adversity: Decrements and enhancements in children's cognitive control behavior following early caregiving instability

“…Comparatively, childhood maltreatment has been linked to alterations in reward processing (Dillon et al., 2009; Guyer et al., 2006; Harms et al., 2019), perhaps due to less positive parenting (Hanson et al., 2017; McCrory et al., 2017) and hypervigilance to threat (Teicher & Samson, 2016) – experiences which may be more directly linked to growing up in a dangerous environment. Additional recent work has also observed that behavioral enhancements occurred only within a domain posited as relevant to the specific population (Nweze et al., 2020), with no group differences noted in task switching behavior. Taken together, this work highlights the importance of capturing not only the type but also the characteristics of the caregiving environment when disentangling the developmental consequences of early adversity.…”

“…Consistent with this adaptation view, research has identified domains of development that might show enhancements following exposure to early stressors (Ellis et al., 2020). Relatedly, recent work has indicated that children exposed to adverse conditions show improvements in working memory as compared to non‐exposed children, a phenotype interpreted by the authors to have adapted in response to the environmental context (Nweze et al., 2020). Unpredictability has also emerged as an important aspect of early adversity in predicting enhancements in cognitive flexibility in adult samples.…”

Contributions of Working Memory and Inhibition to Cognitive Flexibility in Nigerian Adolescents

“…On this account, two participants in the forward span and four participants in backward span were excluded. These exclusions led to a final sample of 74 included participants (See previous study for full description of inclusion criteria; Nweze, Nwoke, Nwufo, Aniekwu, & Lange, 2020 ).…”

Content bias in math testing: Items about money, food, and social interaction disadvantage students from low socioeconomic backgrounds

“…This study provides another instance of ecologically relevant content in tests promoting low-SES students' performance. However, given the results of our current study, we may speculate that other processes caused by ecologically relevant content in math items can override or counteract the bene ts of such content for performance on working memory(Nweze et al, 2021;Young et al, 2018;Young et al, 2022)…”