I hate to distract anyone from any of the heavy discussions we’re having, today – but, I find this article really interesting. Because, frankly, the whole thing was stumbled practically as a joke.
Wrigley Gum sent 700 packages of the company’s new “lifestyle” gum — called “5” — to a Cornell class on the fundamentals of marketing, Sept. 19. The next day, the 591 students took their first prelim and indicated whether they had chewed any of the gum (and whether they were chewing it during the exam).
“The really amazing thing is that when we reported the scores of how the students did on their prelim, students that were chewing gum during the exam had a mean score of 90, compared with the class mean of 78,” said Cornell Professor Ed McLaughlin, who teaches the introductory marketing class.
Noting that this was not a scientific study, just an informal one, McLaughlin was nevertheless struck that students who had chewed none of the gum received a mean score of 60; students who had chewed several pieces had a mean score of 81; and those who chewed the whole pack, 86.
“There was no control group, we did this just for fun, but there were over 150 people in each of these categories!” McLaughlin noted.
The article briefly notes that recent research indicates that act of chewing gum increases blood flow to the brain – and doesn’t say much more than that. But, Wrigley may just have hit upon something really useful.
Update: I found a link to a .pdf of the study mentioned in the article.
In a parallel study, researchers discovered that 100% of the gum chewing students would be ineligible to visit Singapore.
They never caught me! BAHAHAHAHHAHA
ha.
Nothing heightens test scores like amphetamine gum!
#3 It doesn’t look like “5” is upper gum. Just sugar-free.
If you need a boost go with Jolt. No amphetamines but plenty of caffeine.
http://www.joltgum.com/
Need I say correlation is not causality? It could as easily be that the people that do better in class are more likely to be obsessive gum chewers.
Even if its not true though, if I were still studying I would stock up on gum for exams, a dollar or 2 of gum is pretty low cost for a potential 26 mark payoff.
It’s a well-studied effect that any action (listening to music, twisting a pencil in your fingers, maybe chewing gum?) done while studying will increase recall during testing IF the same action is being done.
However, Mozart doesn;t stick to the bottom of the desk so welll.
Maybe, just maybe, this study indicates that the really bright students can think and chew gum at the same time, while the not so bright ones managed to forget where they put their gum. 🙂
During their prelim, students were offered extra credit for submitting a winning slogan for the new gum, called “5” because it is intended to appeal to all five senses.
So if the students knew about the chance for extra credit in advance, then all this really says is that students who prepare for exams do better than those who don’t.
Shocking.
Todd
There is a gum called Think Gum which takes advantage of this phenomena. It is called Think Gum and you can buy it from Think Geek.
There is a gum called Think Gum which takes advantage of this phenomena. It is called Think Gum and you can buy it from Think Geek!