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Memory And Caffeine Essay

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Memory and Caffeine The article Caffeine reduces time-of-day effects on memory performance in older adults by Ryan, Hatfield, & Hofstetter, (2002) is very informative and invaluable to the field of psychology. Researchers examined older adults memory performance and discovered that the time of day impacted the participant’s level of performance. Most participants’ optimal memory performance was in the early morning and decreased in the late afternoons. The results of the first study conjured questions about the decreased level of performance. Therefore, researchers wanted to know if the decline could be improved if participants consumed caffeine. Adults over the age of 65 who were to believe to be ‘morning types’ were tested using the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) over an interval of 5 to 11 days. Participants were tested in the morning and late…show more content…
An idea for future research concerning this study is the long-term effects of frequent caffeine use and if older adults occupation status impacts their memory level of performance. Conducting research on the long-term effects of caffeine is imperative because researchers are suggesting that it can help participants during the three to four hours after consumption but doesn’t discuss the impact of frequent (years) use of caffeine on the human body. These two ideas can lead to scientific understanding because it has the ability to serve as a rationale for memory performance. Generally, anytime a drug enters the body frequently the host becomes desensitized to the dosage. If an young adult started utilizing caffeine on a daily basis due to the struggle of meeting her occupation requirements how would that impact her memory when she becomes an older adult? If theses ideas are research it will serve as a solution to some of the limitations in the previous
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