Imagine you understood what E=mc2 means.
Brain scans revealed more efficient processing during cognitive tasks.
The colours that can make you smarter and more creative.
The colours that can make you smarter and more creative.
Seeing red makes people 31% better at detail-oriented tasks like recalling memories or proofreading, research finds.
The colour blue, though, makes people more creative — doubling the number of creative ideas they produce.
Professor Juliet Zhu, study co-author, said:
“Previous research linked blue and red to enhanced cognitive performance, but disagreed on which provides the greatest boost.
It really depends on the nature of the task.”
The research involved over 600 people doing six different tasks, some involving detail, others creativity.
The tasks were done on computers which displayed either a red or blue background to the task.
People did better on the detail-oriented tasks when the background was red.
Professor Zhu explained that this was because of the unconscious signals the colour sends:
“Thanks to stop signs, emergency vehicles and teachers’ red pens, we associate red with danger, mistakes and caution.
The avoidance motivation, or heightened state, that red activates makes us vigilant and thus helps us perform tasks where careful attention is required to produce a right or wrong answer.”
Blue encouraged people to be more creative.
With a blue background, people produced twice as many creative ideas.
Dr Ravi Mehta, the study’s first author, said it was because it made people feel calm:
“Through associations with the sky, the ocean and water, most people associate blue with openness, peace and tranquility.
The benign cues make people feel safe about being creative and exploratory.
Not surprisingly it is people’s favourite colour.”
The studies were aimed at seeing how colours could be used in marketing to sell more products.
Red helped sell a toothpaste, the researchers found, when negative aspects, like cavity prevention, were emphasised.
For more positive, aspirational messages, like tooth whitening, the colour blue helped sell the toothpaste.
The study was published in the journal Science (Mehta & Zhu, 2009).
Cognitive performance was improved 14% immediately.
Cognitive performance was improved 14% immediately.
Just one 10-minute burst of physical activity is enough to sharpen attention and help us solve problems, new research finds.
In the study people did the 10 minutes on a stationary bicycle at moderate to vigorous intensity.
Immediately afterwards they showed a 14% improvement in their cognitive performance.
Professor Matthew Heath, study co-author, said:
“Some people can’t commit to a long-term exercise regime because of time or physical capacity.
This shows that people can cycle or walk briskly for a short duration, even once, and find immediate benefits.”
Previous studies have shown brain boosts from regular exercise and even a 20-minute bout.
This is one of the shortest periods of exercise shown to be effective in improving cognition.
In the study, after the exercise, people did tricky eye movement tasks while their reactions were measured.
Professor Heath said:
“Those who had exercised showed immediate improvement.
Their responses were more accurate and their reaction times were up to 50 milliseconds shorter than their pre-exercise values.
That may seem minuscule but it represented a 14-per-cent gain in cognitive performance in some instances.”
The findings can help anyone looking for a quick mental edge, said Professor Heath:
“I always tell my students before they write a test or an exam or go into an interview — or do anything that is cognitively demanding — they should get some exercise first.
Our study shows the brain’s networks like it.
They perform better.”
The study was published in the journal Neuropsychologia (Samani et al., 2017).
The mental slowdown is even bigger when a person is hungry.
The mental slowdown is even bigger when a person is hungry.
Sugar causes people to perform worse on tests of memory and thinking skills, new research finds.
Participants consuming either table sugar (glucose) or fruit sugars (fructose) were worse at math, had slower reactions and showed poorer attention than a control group who had a sweetener.
The study suggests that what is sometimes called a ‘sugar coma’ — a slow down caused by sugary foods — could be a real effect.
Being very hungry before consuming the sugar made the brain’s performance even worse, the researchers also found.
The study’s authors write:
“…ingestion of glucose and sucrose led to poorer performances on the assessed tasks as opposed to fructose and the placebo; these effects were particularly pronounced under the fasting condition in comparison to the non-fasting condition.”
The study was a double-blinded placebo-controlled experimental design.
People who consumed a sweetener did not see any deficit in their cognitive performance.
This suggests it is not the sensation of sweetness, but rather the effects of sugar itself.
The study was published in the journal Physiology & Behavior (Ginieis et al., 2018).
The boost is beneficial for everyone aged 18-80.
The boost is beneficial for everyone aged 18-80.
People with higher cardiorespiratory fitness have a better memory, research finds.
The brain is also more active during learning in people who have more heart-lung capacity.
Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) essentially refers to how good your heart and lungs are at supplying oxygen to the muscles.
The boost to the brain is beneficial to both 18-year-olds as well as those in their seventh decade.
Dr Scott Hayes, study author, said:
“Importantly, CRF is a modifiable health factor that can be improved through regular engagement in moderate to vigorous sustained physical activity such as walking, jogging, swimming, or dancing.
Therefore, starting an exercise program, regardless of one’s age, can not only contribute to the more obvious physical health factors, but may also contribute to memory performance and brain function.”
For the study, people were given a tricky memory test: trying to learn people’s names.
Those that were fitter did better, whatever their age.
However, heart and lung fitness appeared particularly beneficial to older adults.
Areas of the brain that typically decline with age were given a boost by greater fitness.
The study was published in the journal Cortex (Hayes et al., 2017).
The study followed 68 women across two menstrual cycles.
The study followed 68 women across two menstrual cycles.
Apparently many women are convinced that their periods kill their brainpower.
Or, so says Professor Brigitte Leeners, author of a new study on the topic:
“As a specialist in reproductive medicine and a psychotherapist, I deal with many women who have the impression that the menstrual cycle influences their well-being and cognitive performance.”
The new study shows, though, that there is no link between hormonal levels and mental capacity.
Professor Leeners explained:
“The hormonal changes related to the menstrual cycle do not show any association with cognitive performance.
Although there might be individual exceptions, women’s cognitive performance is in general not disturbed by hormonal changes occurring with the menstrual cycle.”
The study followed 68 women across two menstrual cycles.
Their levels of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone were measured, along with their cognitive performance.
The researchers could find no link between the levels of these hormones and memory, attention or cognitive bias.
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (Leeners et al., 2017).
The food improves cognitive performance, attention, processing speed, verbal fluency and even helps fight lack of sleep.
The food improves cognitive performance, attention, processing speed, verbal fluency and even helps fight lack of sleep.
Cocoa flavanols have a remarkable range of mental benefits, according to a new review of the research.
Dark chocolate is a particularly rich source of cocoa flavanols.
Within hours of consuming cocoa flavanols, people’s memory performance improves, as does their ability to process visual information.
Cocoa flavanols have even been shown to reduce the damaging effects of sleep deprivation (although the study was conducted only on women).
For younger people, cocoa flavanols seem to be of most mental benefit for highly challenging tasks.
Taking cocoa flavanols over the long term has also been linked to a variety of mental benefits.
In elderly people, they have been shown to improve cognitive performance, attention, processing speed and verbal fluency.
These effects are particularly strong among elderly people starting to see age-related mental decline.
One study, published in Nature Neuroscience, found a high-flavanol diet could restore aspects of older people’s memory back to that of a typical 30- or 40-year-old.
Two of the study’s authors, Dr Valentina Socci and Dr Michele Ferrara from the University of L’Aquila in Italy, said:
“This result suggests the potential of cocoa flavanols to protect cognition in vulnerable populations over time by improving cognitive performance.
If you look at the underlying mechanism, the cocoa flavanols have beneficial effects for cardiovascular health and can increase cerebral blood volume in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus.
This structure is particularly affected by aging and therefore the potential source of age-related memory decline in humans.”
However, there are some side-effects to eating chocolate, the authors say:
“Regular intake of cocoa and chocolate could indeed provide beneficial effects on cognitive functioning over time.
There are, however, potential side effects of eating cocoa and chocolate.
Those are generally linked to the caloric value of chocolate, some inherent chemical compounds of the cocoa plant such as caffeine and theobromine, and a variety of additives we add to chocolate such as sugar or milk.”
Nevertheless, the scientists themselves are devotees:
“Dark chocolate is a rich source of flavanols.
So we always eat some dark chocolate.
Every day.”
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition (Socci et al., 2017).
Finger licking image from Shutterstock
How many animals can you name that begin with the letter ‘F’?
How many animals can you name that begin with the letter ‘F’?
More sex has been linked to improved brain function by new research.
Among older people, those who reported higher sexual activity also had higher brain power, the new study found.
More sex was linked to being better with words.
This was tested by giving someone 60 seconds to list as many animals as they could…as well as listing as many words beginning with ‘F’ as they could.
Those that reported sexual activity on a weekly basis did best.
A second test that those having more sex did better on involved testing visual discrimination.
Dr Hayley Wright, who led the research, said:
“We can only speculate whether this is driven by social or physical elements – but an area we would like to research further is the biological mechanisms that may influence this.
Every time we do another piece of research we are getting a little bit closer to understanding why this association exists at all, what the underlying mechanisms are, and whether there is a ’cause and effect’ relationship between sexual activity and cognitive function in older people.
The study was carried out on 73 people aged between 50 and 83.
Dr Wright said:
“People don’t like to think that older people have sex – but we need to challenge this conception at a societal level and look at what impact sexual activity can have on those aged 50 and over, beyond the known effects on sexual health and general wellbeing.”
No links between sex and memory or attention were seen in this study.
However, previous research finds:
“Regular sex is linked to a better memory in healthy young women.
Other research has also hinted that the same may well be true for men.
The theory is that regular sex helps to grow new brain cells in the region of the brain linked to memory.”
The study was published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B (Wright et al., 2017).
Researchers tested how the mere presence of a smartphone affected cognitive capacity.
Researchers tested how the mere presence of a smartphone affected cognitive capacity.
The mere presence of your smartphone makes you more dumb, even when it is on silent, new research finds.
It doesn’t even matter if it is turned off!
So, leaving your smartphone in another room actually makes you smarter.
The study found that when people had their smartphones with them, their cognitive capacity was reduced.
Cognitive capacity is the ability to hold and process information in the mind.
Dr Adrian Ward, the study’s first author, said:
“We see a linear trend that suggests that as the smartphone becomes more noticeable, participants’ available cognitive capacity decreases.
Your conscious mind isn’t thinking about your smartphone, but that process — the process of requiring yourself to not think about something — uses up some of your limited cognitive resources.
It’s a brain drain.”
People who left their smartphones in another room performed the best on cognitive tests, the study found.
The researchers tried all sorts of variations to check the effects.
Some people had their smartphones:
It didn’t matter, as long as the smartphone was near them, it decreased their brain power.
The only way to get rid of the smartphone disadvantage was put it in your pocket or, better yet, to put it in another room.
Dr Ward said:
“It’s not that participants were distracted because they were getting notifications on their phones.
The mere presence of their smartphone was enough to reduce their cognitive capacity.”
The researchers also tested how dependent people were on their phones.
How strongly, they were asked, did they feel they needed their smartphone to get through a typical day?
The researchers found that the most dependent people were the most put off when their phone was in the same room with them.
Once it was totally out of the room, then it didn’t have the same negative effect.
The study was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (Ward et al., 2017).
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