Lab Report on Caffeine

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Decrease difference in reaction time, between three adult groups, dependent on consumption of caffeinated beverages Abstract: * Rationale The specific topic, of caffeine affecting reaction time is, of interest, to understand the biological affects it has on the human body (see Smith (2002). The investigation distinguished the effects of caffeine consumption. * Objectives To detect, whether or not, caffeine consumption leads to a prompter reaction time. * Method Participants (N = 18), were spilt into three groups consisting of six baseline subjects, six decaffeinated coffee consumers and six regular coffee consumers. All three groups conducted a Reaction Time Task consisting of 44 trials. * Results The current results failed to support the hypothesis ‘caffeine consumption causes a significant decrease in reaction time’ (Regular coffee and decaffeinated coffee (U=11.00, N = 12; p=.262), regular coffee and base line (U=9.00, N = 12; p=.150). Conclusion The present investigation, failed to distinguish significant differences between participants caffeine consumption and reaction time. The data gathered may have been subjected to confounding variables influencing results and therefore failing to support the original hypothesis. Introduction: Caffeine is a widely consumed substance, being found in food as well as beverages (Brice and Smith, 2002). Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and at high doses it can have adverse effects on the body, such as, the occurrence of hyperesthesia and insomnia (Klein & Salzman, 1975). However, at moderate-low levels, caffeine has been found to increase both mental and motor performance (Graham, 1978). Lieberman (1992) investigated the effects of caffeine consumption in daily foods, concluding that lower doses are beneficial, improving an individual’s attention and response time in

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