The Effects of Chewing Gum on Physiological Stress Responses and Cognitive Recall
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Date
2018Author
Ausloos, Emily
Paradowski, Jessica
Ruth, Annette Marie
Strom, Lauren
Voruganti, Nihal
Publisher
Journal of Advanced Student Sciences (JASS)
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate how chewing gum both affects physiological
stress responses directly and short-term memory indirectly. It was hypothesized that chewing
gum will directly attenuate the elicited physiological stress response and indirectly enhance
cognitive performance. Stress response to verbal and audio stressors was measured through
changes in blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) via electrocardiography (ECG), and brain wave
activity via electroencephalography (EEG). Two subject groups, Group A and Group B,
completed a word search task followed by a recall task. The groups differed in the time at which
they received a piece of gum within the study. Group A received gum after the stress induced
task and Group B received the gum before the stress induced task. Results concluded that,
contrary to the hypothesis and the findings of prior studies, chewing gum neither significantly
changed the three physiological measurements upon exposure to the stressor, nor did it indirectly
enhance cognitive recall performance. Increased systolic BP during the recall task was the only
significant result between groups (p=0.039; 95% CI). Chewing gum led to a 5 times greater
increase in BP, though marginally statistically insignificant (p=0.053: 95% CI). No significant
findings were identified for HR or brain wave activity, either between groups or while chewing
gum (vs. baseline). Increasing the amount of participants and improving quality of equipment
could improve future studies
Subject
Brain Waves
stress
Short Term Memory
Mastication
ElectroEncepholoGram (EEG)
ElectroCardioGram (ECG)
Cognitive Recall
Blood Pressure
Audio
Permanent Link
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/81967Description
An article that appeared in JASS, issue 2018