People who remember to grab their daily lattes may remember more in general.
A new study from The Johns Hopkins University found caffeine helped boost the memory of 160 participants.
“The motivation was really trying to bring scientific rigor to something that typically hasn’t been studied with the same level of rigor,” said Michael Yassa, one of the study’s researchers.
The researchers discovered that people who were given a caffeine tablet five minutes before they looked at a series of images were more likely to correctly identify the images 24 hours later.
Divya Jolly, a 19-year-old UF behavioral and cognitive neuroscience junior, said she was surprised by the results even though she’s an avid coffee drinker.
“I use coffee as a crutch to keep me awake at all times,” she said. “I keep more alert when I’m studying, which helps me retain more.”
However, Yassa said the implications of the study for students aren’t all positive.
“Coffee is taken also to put off sleep or to even pull off an all-nighter and not sleep at all for an exam,” he said.
Yassa stressed that swapping coffee for sleep can be an ineffective long-term method.
“That can be detrimental because what we also know from the literature is that sleep is very helpful for memory and that sleep deprivation is very bad for memory,” he said.
A version of this story ran on page 3 on 1/16/2014 under the headline "Study shows caffeine can help drinkers remember a-latte more"
Research published Sunday from The Johns Hopkins University suggests caffeine has a positive effect on long-term memory.
