Student Post: Do Fragrances Have an Effect on Sustained Attention?

The following post was written by Christopher Dillon Parker, a Junior Psychology Major at Wingate University, Wingate, NC.

Effective ways to maintain attention during sustained tasks have long been sought after by numerous individuals and corporations across the world. This is because everyone who must endure a tiring and tedious task needs an efficient way to make sure that they remain alert. A worker who cannot stay attentive and vigilant at their job can be a hazard to themselves and others around them, while a student who cannot remain focused on a test is less likely to do well or achieve their full potential. Not being able to focus well may also cause much undesired stress in these individuals. However, studies have shown that being able to remain alert during a long-lasting activity, while also keeping stress levels down, can be accommodated by something as simple as a smell.

A basis for these studies can be seen in a 1990s article, written by researchers at the University of Cincinnati, on the effects of smell on performance and stress during a long-lasting visual attention task. In the study these researchers conducted, they were testing to see whether or not certain smells had any effect on attention during a long task. They used thirty-six participants, 18 males and an equal amount of females, who were randomly assigned to one of three fragrance groups: a control group that received unscented air and two groups that either received Peppermint- (noted as being alerting) or Muguet-(noted as being relaxing) scented air (Warm, 1990). The subjects had to observe a dot centered vertically and horizontally between two parallel lines and were to complete the tasks of clicking the spacebar on the computer every time they thought the lines moved further apart. The subjects’ responses to movement of the lines were automatically counted as correct if they responded within 1.25 seconds of the lines having moved (Warm, 1990). Any other responses were counted as the subject having either failed to see when the lines moved or saying the lines moved when they had not. The subjects also wore a modified home oxygen mask throughout the experiment. This mask was used to deliver 30-second whiffs of either the unscented air or one of the scents to the subject after the first 4.5 minutes of the experiment and then every five minutes afterwards for forty minutes (Warm, 1990). They also measured the stress of the subjects by using three scales: the Thackray Mood Scales, the Yoshitake Symptoms of Fatigue Scale, and the Stanford Sleepiness Scale.

The overall findings of the study showed that the subjects who received scented air performed better on the vigilance task than those who were received unscented air. However, all of the subjects’ vigilance decreased over the course of the forty minutes. All subjects in scented conditions also felt less stressed than those in the unscented condition. Lastly, there were no differences in the ability to determine a signal from a non-signal between men and women in any of the three fragrance situations or during any particular time of day. The author (Joel Warm) of this article concluded that being given whiffs of air scented with either Peppermint or Muguet can increase one’s ability to detect signals during a long, vigilant task. Based off of his findings, Warm proposes that an exposure to fragrance (not necessarily just Peppermint or Muguet) may actually be effective in helping keep someone stimulated during long and demanding tasks (Warm, 1990).

Another experiment that validates this article is one concerning the effects of peppermint and cinnamon on driving alertness, mood, and workload. The authors of this study theorized that past experimentation on the effects of fragrances should allow them to conclude that being presented with certain odors while driving may create a more focused and alert driver, and may minimize any tiredness associated with driving for a prolonged period of time (Raudenbush, Grayhem, Sears & Wilson, 2009). They tested their hypothesis with a driving simulation test that was completed using virtual reality technology and the scented or unscented air was provided to the subject by way of a nasal cannula, which is a breathing tube with two small prongs that are inserted into the nostrils. Their subjects were tested in all three scent conditions, with 48 hour time intervals between each test to control for fatigue issues. The researchers found that the peppermint and cinnamon were successful in raising alertness, lowering fatigue and anxiety rates, and in reducing driver frustration during the driving tasks (Raudenbush, Grayhem, Sears & Wilson, 2009). Therefore, the drivers were found to be more alert, less anxious, and less fatigued. They also felt that the drive was much shorter than it really was in the fragrance situations. However, this study, unlike the first, tells of an instance where odor may not actually enhance performance. The authors explain that in one study, the presence of a lavender odor can significantly hinder the performance of working memory, the reaction time for any memory or attention oriented tasks, and mathematical reasoning (Ludvigson & Rottman, 1989; Moss, Cook, Wesnes & Dickett, 2003). Thus, it can be concluded that a pleasant odor’s presence alone does not always enhance performance. It would appear that it is a specific aspect of each distinct odor that causes one’s performance to be enhanced. However, some pleasant scents may actually be harmful to performance, such as in the experiment with the lavender. Therefore, any future research concerning the effects of smell on performance should pay close attention to what type of scent is given to their subjects to test.

The initial article for discussion made a very good hypothesis concerning the effects the fragrances were speculated to have on their subjects; however, neither fragrance ended up having any effect on performance efficiency. This just seems to draw a weaker conclusion since they were only testing the subjects’ ability to detect when two lines moved away from a dot. Their experiment could have been more strongly presented had they chosen to do a simulated driving scenario, like in the second experiment discussed. The could have also better presented their experiment if they had decided to administer a test, possibly similar to the SAT or any other standardized test. Had they performed an experiment more along these lines, they would have been able to validate their findings through a more real-world application. Overall, they had a good hypothesis, good methodology, and the conclusion that being exposed to a fragrance can increase alertness during a long and demanding task is difficult to dispute. The only truly negative aspect to their experiment is that they gave it no real-world application and they did not discuss the possibility that some fragrances could have a counteractive effect on performance efficiency.

References

Ludvigson, H. W. & Rottman, T. R. (1989). Effects of ambient odors of lavender and cloves on  cognition, memory, affect and mood. Chemical Senses, 14, 525-536.

Moss, M., Cook, J., Wesnes, K. & Duckett, P. (2003). Aromas of rosemary and lavender   essential oils differentially affect cognition and mood in healthy adults. International   Journal of Neuroscience, 113, 15-38.

Raudenbush, B., Grayhem, R., Sears, T., & Wilson, I. (2009, June 01). FPO: IP research and communities. Retrieved from http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/North-American  Journal-Psychology/200919505.html

Warm, J. (1990). Effects of olfactory stimulation on performance and stress in a visual sustained  attention task. Retrieved from http://journal.scconline.org/pdf/cc1991/cc042n03/p00199   p00210.pdf

Student Post: Can a Cup of Coffee Help “Morning People” to Overcome the Evening Slump?

The following post was written by Justin Templeton, a Junior Psychology Major at Wingate University, Wingate, NC.

Coffee has always been on a balance between being considered too unhealthy for its focus-enhancing benefits. Ever since coffee became widely known for its stimulating qualities, people have argued one of two sides. The arguments jumped from one side saying it causes cancer to the other side saying how the antioxidants prevent cancer. A recent study found strong evidence suggesting that the pep coffee puts in your step may now be worth the risk.

How much can coffee improve one’s mental functioning during the day? A study by Ryan, Hatfield, and Hofstetter found a very strong relationship between the times of day an individual drinks coffee and how much of an effect it has on his or her mental functioning throughout day. Conducted in Arizona, the experiment involved adults over the age of 65. The participants were all active seniors whom described themselves as “morning people.” For one week, the participants were required to visit the lab in the morning and evening. During the evening visit, the experimenters would give the participants a 12oz cup of coffee.  A double-blind technique was used to prevent the participants from knowing if they received caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee. Thirty minutes after ingesting the coffee, the participants would take a recall test to determine their level of mental functioning compared to the morning.

The results held strongly that coffee provides cognitive benefits as previously believed. As predicted, the seniors that described themselves as morning people showed their highest functioning in the morning. After having coffee, however, they continued to do as well on their recall test in the evening. In comparison, the participants that received decaffeinated coffee in the evening showed a significant drop in their scores on the recall test. This suggests that coffee can maintain peak mental functioning throughout the whole day.

Ryan, Hatfield, and Hofstetter attribute the participant’s elimination of the decline in memory performance not to an improvement in cognitive functioning, but rather to the participant’s ability to ignore distractions. The caffeine in the coffee allowed the participants to focus on the recall test to the best of their ability as they did earlier that morning. They could ignore any irrelevant information or distractions, like a fly on the wall, or a buzzing from the lights. One way Ryan, Hatfield, and Hofstetter could have investigated deeper into their conclusion would to remove anything else that may have been distracting during their recall tests. This would hopefully ensure that the participants focus on the test and nothing else.

Ryan, Hatfield, and Hofstetter’s experiment suggests that coffee does help senior morning people overcome their evening drowsiness, but is this enough to assume that these results apply to most people? The answer seems to be “yes.” Earlier findings from a study by Hepburn and colleagues (1984) suggest similar results apply to “evening” people as well. This means that people who are lower functioning during the morning and then peak towards the evening to late hours would be able to function at their best during the morning with the help of coffee. This includes roughly eighty percent of people who don’t consider themselves morning people.

For now the balance is slightly leaning towards coffee’s advantageous effects. As more experiments and research are conducted involving coffee’s effect on health and mentality, the balance will likely fall towards its positives outweighing any negatives. Until that time, anyone hoping for a little more pep in their step can turn to coffee. It will improve memory through a stronger focus on the current task.

Works Cited

Ryan, L., Hatfield, C., & Hofstetter, M. (2002). Caffeine reduces time-of-day effects on memory performance in older adults. Psychological Science, 13(1), 68-71.

Hepburn, C., Ortiz, V., & Locksley, A. (1984). Morning and evening people: Examination of an identifying scale and of social- and self-perceptions of personality differences. Journal of Research in Personality, 18, 99-109.

Student Post: Do Tattoos and Piercings Influence Personality Perception?

The following post is by Rachel Wallace, a Sophomore Psychology Major and Human Services Minor at Wingate University, Wingate, NC.

Imagine you are walking down the street and you see someone with what seems like a million piercings and/or tattoos all over their body. What do you think? How do you judge this person? Are you saying to yourself, ‘Oh, this person looks really sweet?’ Or are you saying to yourself, ‘Oh my gosh, I do not want to be anywhere near him/her?’ As the years progress, more and more people are getting tattoos and piercings. People get them to be individuals, be defiant, or be expressive of our personalities, but do piercings and tattoos really do what people want them to?

Over the years, many psychological studies have been done to assess the effect piercings and tattoos have on people’s perceptions of others. One such study, “The Influence of Facial Piercings and Observer Personality on Perceptions of Physical Attractiveness and Intelligence,” seeks to uncover how attractive and intelligent people see individuals with facial piercings. We tend to think that even if we get facial piercings, everyone will still see us as beautiful and smart, but is this really the case? The researchers in charge of this experiment, Swami et al., decided to find out.

To find the answer to this question, Swami et al. first got a group of people together to use in their study, and then had them rate computer generated images of people with piercings. They had 32 images, 16 male and 16 female, where 2 had no piercings, 8 had one piercing, and 22 had multiple piercings. They had their participants rate the images on attractiveness and intelligence. What Swami et al. found was that the pictures with multiple piercings were rated less attractive and less intelligent than the pictures with one piercing and no piercings. This finding actually contradicted previous findings that stated that perceptions of people with piercings were normally positive.

The researchers, as to try to account for possible limitations, took into account the number of piercings and tattoos that each participant had. Doing this allowed them to control for the possibility that a person may base their opinion on their number of piercings. In the article, the authors actually stated that the number of piercings a participant had did not affect the way they rated the picture. I personally think that this is a false statement. Even though their data may not have shown that people with piercings were more likely to like piercings, this may still be the case.  I know that with me personally, I find certain piercings attractive even though I only have five piercings myself.

In reality, I know a lot of people who do not have many piercings, but find piercings on others attractive; however, the opposite is also true. I do not think that this study accurately depicts the views of society on piercings in all situations. Yes, in professional situations, you should not have piercings all over your face or tattoos visible all over your body, but that does not mean you are an unattractive person.

There are studies that have been done assessing how professionals feel about piercings and tattoos in the workplace. “Should Physicians Have Facial Piercings?” is one such study. It consists of surveys given to physicians to find out how they feel about facial piercings in the medical workplace. This study found that most physicians, of the ones participating, feel that facial piercings make the patient wary of the physician’s ability and less likely to trust the treatment offered.

Although most studies try to say that the popular opinion of piercings and tattoos is negative, there are studies that say the opposite. “Perceptions of Body Modifications” by Catherine Kahl is a study that does just that. Kahl’s study found that those with tattoos and piercings are viewed differently than those without; however, she also found that the traits attributed to pierced and tattooed people are more positive traits. For example, Kahl found that males are considered more masculine, and anyone with a piercing and/or tattoo is considered more open. In my opinion, this study more accurately depicts the view of the majority of society.

When you put all of this information together, the issue of the way the world perceives people with tattoos and piercings still seems a mystery. There is just too much contradicting information to make a clear judgment on the opinion of the world. I mean, even the original article, “The Influence of Facial Piercings and Observer Personality on Perceptions of Physical Attractiveness and Intelligence,” contradicts itself in the beginning of the article. The authors themselves seem unclear on what to believe about piercings.

In all honesty, I think that people with piercings should not be judged. I mean, think about it, do you want to be judged for the color of your skin or the clothes you wear? No? Then why judge someone for the way they choose to express themselves. Piercings and tattoos are exactly that: a form of expression. They are a permanent form of art that you can use to tell a story for all the world to see. No, I do not have tattoos, and I do not plan on getting any, but I am not going to judge a person because they have them. For all we know, that person with the full body tattoo, or a million facial piercings, could be the best parent/friend/sister/brother/teacher/preacher we will ever meet, and if we judge them by how they look, we will never know.

References

Kahl, C. M. (n.d.). Perceptions of body modification. National Undergraduate Research Clearinghouse Site. Retrieved from http://clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu/manuscripts/385.php

Newman, Alison W., Wright, Seth W., Wrenn, Keith D., & Bernard, Aline. Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Department of Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Swami, V., Stieger, S., Pietschnig, J., Voracek, M., Furnham, A., & Tovée, M. J. (2012). The influence of facial piercings and observer personality on perceptions of physical attractiveness and intelligence. European Psychologist, 17(3), 213-221.

Admitting Psychology into the Science Club

Although the field of psychology has made considerable progress over the last few decades in establishing itself as a rigorous, scientific discipline, there are some who continue to criticize the field for being “unscientific.” These critics point to what they consider ambiguous terminology, a lack of experimental control, and ambiguous subjective measures of constructs like “happiness” and “life satisfaction” as reasons why psychology should be considered a “soft” science at best. However, these criticisms ignore the diverse methodologies and research areas within our field. So, let me offer a different perspective.

In my somewhat biased opinion, psychology is a science. It is not a “soft” science, and it is not a “social” science (a strange characterization implying that every psychologist investigates matters related to society and social interaction). Psychology is a natural science. And it is one that relies on rigorous experimental methods and measurements to make strong inferences about the underlying mental processes and environmental factors that control human behavior.

One reason people might think psychology is “unscientific” is that psychologists study mental processes, which are unobservable and unquantifiable. Although this is true, it is not something that is unique to our field. And psychologists circumvent this problem much the same way other sciences do – by relying on unambiguous measures of things that are related to a particular phenomenon and which can be quantified. Therefore even though psychologists are interested in the mind, we often measure overt behavior in the form of accuracy on a particular task (e.g., the number of words recalled on a memory test) or reaction time (e.g., how long it takes someone to push a button indicating recognition of a face) because these behaviors are guided by a vast number of underlying mental events.

And even though psychologists study the mind indirectly by measuring aspects of behavior, we can draw very strong conclusions about mental processing by relying on two fundamental aspects of any natural science, specifically rigorous experimentation and the human capacity for deductive reasoning.

Imagine that I hand you a black box with what appears to be two rods protruding from either side (call them rod A and rod B), and I ask you to figure out whether A and B are separate rods or two ends of a single rod. The black box is sealed on all six sides, so it is impossible to solve this problem by opening up the box to peer inside. How can you solve this problem?

The answer is that you can be a good scientist and perform a series of experimental manipulations on one of the rods. For example, first you might try pushing on rod A to see if this action has any observable effect on rod B. Imagine that when you push rod A inward toward the center of the box, rod B pushes outward on the other side. Following this single manipulation you conclude that there is a relationship between the two rods. However, the precise nature of this relationship is still unclear. Are rods A and B two ends of the same rod, or are they perhaps separate rods that bump up against one another inside the box? Answering this question requires another experimental manipulation. So, this time you might try to pull rod A outward from the center of the box. And imagine that when you try this there is no observable effect on rod B. Now, we can confidently conclude that A and B are separate rods, but that they probably bump up against one another inside the box (hence the reason they seemed to be related following the first manipulation).

This example serves as a nice analog to the problem faced by psychological scientists. As psychologists, we want to understand the nature of the relationship between a stimulus input (A) and a behavioral output (B), but the nature of this relationship is determined by unobservable mental operations that occur inside the black box, which in our case is the human brain. And even though we cannot peer inside the brain we can infer what is happening inside the brain by employing carefully controlled experimental manipulations of stimuli in the surrounding environment and by observing how these manipulations affect unambiguous, quantifiable measures of behavior.

This scientific approach to the study of the mind is common in a sub-discipline of psychology known as cognitive psychology, which deals with understanding everyday mental processes, such as attention, perception, and memory.  Consider the research of cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, whose work is now famous for reshaping our understanding of human memory. In a classic experiment by Loftus and Palmer (1974), participants were shown a video of a car accident and then asked to estimate how fast they thought the cars were going when the accident occurred. Critically, Loftus and Palmer manipulated the strength of the verb contained in this question. For example, some participants were asked, “How fast were the cars going when they bumped together?” whereas other participants were asked, “How fast were the cars going when they smashed together?” One of the critical findings from this experiment was that people gave higher speed estimates when they saw the question with the verb “smashed” compared to the verb “bumped.” More importantly though, when participants were reminded a week later of the video they had watched, participants who saw the question with the verb “smashed” were more likely to “remember” having seen broken glass at the scene of the accident. This occurred even though there was no broken glass in the video!

The study by Loftus and Palmer illustrates how psychologists combine rigorous experimental methods with systematic manipulation of key variables (in this case verb strength) to study unobservable mental processes like memory. This combined with unambiguous, quantifiable measures of behavior – specifically, people’s speed estimates and their reports a week later as to whether they remembered seeing broken glass at the scene of the accident – yields, in my opinion, all the essential ingredients of a true, natural science.

References

Berezow, A. (2012). Keep psychology out of the science club. Retrieved August 29, 2012, from http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2012/07/keep-psychology-out-of-science-club.html

Loftus, E.F. & Palmer, J.C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 585-589.

Wilson, T.D. (2012). Stop bullying the ‘soft’ sciences. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 29, 2012, from http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wilson-social-sciences-20120712,0,4672619.story

 

*A version of this post can also be found here at Mom Psych

Cultural Ties

Researchers at Northwestern University investigate cultural differences in how people tie their shoe laces.

How do you tie your shoes?

How to Train Your Brain and Boost Your Memory Like a USA Memory Champion

How to Train Your Brain and Boost Your Memory Like a USA Memory Champion.

there are two steps, basically, for all memory challenges, whether you’re in a strange mental sport/hobby or trying to remember where you parked your car:

1. Turn abstract, boring things that the brain doesn’t like to remember and can’t really latch onto (like names and numbers) into more visual ones.
2. Find a place to store or anchor mental images where you’re more likely to remember them—in your “memory palace,” a.k.a., in the journey method.

Neuroscientists Can Stumble When They Make Conclusions from Examining Single Patients | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network

Nice example of the problem with relying too heavily on anomalous case studies to develop theories of human cognition.

“The main problem of single-case research lies in the selective reporting of data and simplification of equivocal findings, Himmelbach says.  “This is a problem for all research techniques, but for single-case research the independent replication of original findings is a particular problem as it is very unlikely that an independent group of researchers gets access to another single case with more or less identical characteristics.” The message conveyed: Looking at a single individual, though often vitally useful, can turn perilous if over-reliance on these observations becomes the foundation for new models of how complex brain circuits function.

via Neuroscientists Can Stumble When They Make Conclusions from Examining Single Patients | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network.