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Twenty-nine schoolchildren were tested throughout the morning on 4 successive days, having a different breakfast each day (either of the cereals Cheerios or Shreddies, glucose drink or No breakfast). A series of computerised tests of attention, working memory and episodic secondary memory was conducted prior to breakfast and again 30, 90, 150 and 210 min later. The glucose drink and No breakfast conditions...
Effects of a combination of caffeine and glucose were assessed in two double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over studies during extended performance of cognitively demanding tasks. In the first study, 30 participants received two drinks containing carbohydrate and caffeine (68 g/38 mg; 68 g/46 mg, respectively) and a placebo drink, in counter-balanced order, on separate days. In the second study...
In a study published previously in this journal (Wilkinson et al., 2002), the effect of chewing gum on cognitive functioning was examined. The results of this study indicated that chewing a piece of gum results in an improvement of working memory and of both immediate and delayed recall of words but not of attention. In the present study, memory and a variety of attentional functions of healthy adult...
Recent reports suggest that enhancement of memory performance while chewing gum is a fairly robust phenomenon. The processes underlying the effect are not known, but may involve glucose delivery, context-dependent effects and arousal mechanisms amongst others. This brief commentary outlines the main findings from these studies and raises some issues regarding interpretation, methodology and future...
Recent studies have reported varying results regarding cognitive performance while chewing gum. The differences between the results of these studies may be explained by methodological and statistical factors. Future studies are needed to assess various aspects of cognitive functioning using extensive standardised neuropsychological test batteries, adequate experimental designs and appropriate statistical...
An initial summary of four papers in Appetite on modulation of cognitive function while chewing gum attempted to identify the bearing of similarities and differences between methodologies on the results reported. In their responses the authors of two of the papers highlight further methodological and theoretical issues, and these are discussed briefly here.
Previously, it has been demonstrated that overeating can occur when an individual engages in a cognitive task during a meal. One possibility, therefore, is that task performance can provide a measure of attention to dietary control. To explore this idea we measured performance on an otherwise irrelevant task during a meal. In two experiments, we compared intake and performance across five groups of...
This study investigated whether the glycaemic index (GI) of breakfast cereal differentially affects children's attention and memory. Using a balanced cross-over design, on two consecutive mornings 64 children aged 6–11 years were given a high GI cereal and a low GI cereal in a counterbalanced order. They performed a series of computerised tests of attention and memory, once prior to breakfast and...
The present study investigated (1) whether consumption of a nibble-size snack, as compared to a bar-size snack, leads to more sensory specific satiety (SSS) and a lower intake; and (2) whether attention to consumption, as compared to usual consumption, leads to more SSS and a lower intake. Subjects (N=59) tested two snack foods which differed in size, nibbles and bars, in two consumption conditions...
Guaraná (Paullinia cupana) extracts are most commonly used in Western markets as putatively psychoactive food and drink additives. This double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, parallel groups study assessed the acute effects of either a vitamin/mineral/guaraná supplement or placebo drink in 129 healthy young adults (18–24 years). Participants completed a 10min version of the Cognitive Demand...
To examine how a low-carbohydrate diet affects cognitive performance, women participated in one of two weight-loss diet regimens. Participants self-selected a low-carbohydrate (n=9) or a reduced-calorie balanced diet similar to that recommended by the American Dietetic Association (ADA diet) (n=10). Seventy-two hours before beginning their diets and then 48h, 1, 2, and 3 weeks after starting, participants...
There is a growing evidence that obesity is not only a weight problem, but it is linked to adverse neurocognitive outcomes. Besides obesity, frontal lobe based cognitive deficits in depressed patients are confirmed, and interactions between depression and obesity are known. In our study we investigated the relationship between cognitive functioning, mood and female obesity. Our findings revealed reduced...
The impact of asking children to drink water during their school days, and its possible influence on school performance, has been little considered using intervention studies. Therefore in the afternoon the cognitive functioning of 40 children (mean of 8 years and 7 months) was assessed twice, once after drinking 300ml of water and on another day when no water was provided. Memory was assessed by...
Tea ingredients l-theanine and caffeine have repeatedly been shown to deliver unique cognitive benefits when consumed in combination. The current randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, cross-over study compared a combination of l-theanine (97mg) and caffeine (40mg) to a placebo on two attention tasks and a self-report questionnaire before, and 10 and 60min after consumption. The combination...
Impairments of attention are cardinal features of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and can seriously affect the daily life of children with ADHD. Despite effective treatment strategies, there is a need of further treatment options that can be added to available and well established treatments. Further treatment options are needed since available treatments are often time consuming,...
Recent evidence indicates that attention is higher for individually tailored as compared to non-tailored health communications. The present study examined whether the predicted increased attention for the tailored as opposed to general nutrition education messages is moderated by presenting high vs. low threat information about the negative consequences of an unhealthy diet. In a mixed subject experimental...
Recent research examined the effects of chewing gum on attention and reported a significant interaction of gum chewing with time. Using a crossover within-subject design, the present study examined the effect of gum chewing on sustained attention in healthy adults over a period of 30min. The results revealed a significant main effect of time and a significant interaction between gum chewing and time...
Tea has previously been demonstrated to better help sustain alertness throughout the day in open-label studies. We investigated whether tea improves attention and self-reported alertness in two double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, crossover studies. Participants received black tea (made from commercially available tea bags) in one condition and placebo tea (hot water with food colours and...
The primary goal of this study was to examine eye gaze behavior to different kinds of food images in individuals differing in BMI status. Eye-tracking methods were used to examine gaze and pupil responses while normal weight and overweight women freely viewed pairs of different food images: high calorie sweet foods, high calorie savory foods, and low calorie foods. Self-report measures of hunger,...
Although front-of-pack nutrition labeling can help consumers make healthier food choices, lack of attention to these labels limits their effectiveness. This study examines consumer attention to and use of three different nutrition labeling schemes (logo, multiple traffic-light label, and nutrition table) when they face different goals and resource constraints. To understand attention and processing...
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