Examining the influence of perceived stress on developmental change in memory and perceptual speed for adopted and nonadopted individuals.

Abstract

The present study prospectively evaluated cumulative early life perceived stress in relation to differential change in memory and perceptual speed from middle childhood to early adulthood. We aimed to identify periods of cognitive development susceptible to the effects of perceived stress among both adopted and nonadopted individuals. The sample consisted of participants in the Colorado Adoption Project (CAP, N = 690). Structured latent growth curves were fit to 4 memory outcomes as well as 1 perceptual speed outcome, which described nonlinear change between ages 9 and 30. Both adoption status and cumulative perceived stress indices served as predictors of the latent curves. The perceived stress indices were constructed from the Brooks-Gunn Life Events Scale for Adolescents, and reflected "upsettingness" ratings associated with the occurrence of particular life events during middle childhood (ages 9 to 12) and adolescence (ages 13 to 16). For memory and perceptual speed, cumulative perceived stress did not predict differential cognitive gains. However, differences in perceptual speed trajectories between nonadopted and adopted individuals were observed, with adopted individuals showing smaller gains. Although these findings provide no evidence that emergent variability in memory and perceptual speed trajectories by age 30 are explained by cumulative perceptions of stress in childhood and adolescence, further investigations regarding potential vulnerability across the life span are warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record

CATSLife: A Study of Lifespan Behavioral Development and Cognitive Functioning

“…Recently, we have fitted such models in CAP (c.f. Figure 5) to evaluate memory and perceptual speed traits that may be susceptible to the effects of stress (Ricker et al, 2018). Our results suggest that emergent variability in memory and speed trajectories between 9 and 36 years are not explained by cumulative perceived stress indices in childhood and adolescence.…”

The role of neighborhood stressors on cognitive function: A coordinated analysis

“…The final, fully adjusted, models are presented in this text, but the series of model adjustments are presented as Supplementary Tables 5 -14. Because CATSLife combines two studies and adoption status in one of its substudies was shown to be associated with cognition (Ricker et al, 2018), we included adoption status (0 = nonadopted, 1 = adopted) as well as study sample as additional covariates in the CATSLife analyses (though those effects are not presented on the results for ease of comparability).…”

A Latent Variable Mixed-Effects Location Scale Model with an Application to Daily Diary Data

“…Popular models for these kinds of problems are latent curve and mixed-effects models (Bollen and Curran 2006 ; Singer and Willett 2003 ; Skrondal and Rabe-Hesketh 2004 ). Often these models are applied to describe the typical longitudinal trajectory of a population and individual differences in the features that describe the trajectories (e.g., Ricker et al 2018 ). Other investigations additionally include study of the within-person variation of the repeated measures (e.g., Kim and Cicchetti 2009 ).…”