A study led by Michael Yassa from the University of California, Irvine, sought to establish the effects of small quantities of caffeine on memory function in adults. His 160 participants were asked to study images of objects, and then randomly given either a pill containing either 200 milligrams of caffeine—the same as two espressos—or a placebo.
Then, when the volunteers came back after 24 hours, they took a memory test involving images that they’d seen before, unseen images, and images that were similar—but not identical. They were asked to classify each, as “old”, “new” or “similar”. There was no difference between participants in classifying old or new images, but those who had consumed caffeine were better at identifying “similar” images.
via Gizmodo
