A new study confirms how powerful visual cues can be. Chan and Maglio determined that, “Just looking at something that reminds us of coffee can cause our minds to become more alert and attentive…Across four separate studies and using a mix of participants from Western and Eastern cultures, they [the researchers] compared coffee- and tea-related cues. They found that participants exposed to coffee-related cues perceived time as shorter and thought in more concrete, precise terms…the effect was not as strong among participants who grew up in Eastern cultures. Maglio speculates that the association between coffee and arousal is not as strong in less coffee-dominated cultures.” The Chan/Maglio study is published in Consciousness and Cognition.
Don Campbell/Press release, University of Toronto, Scarborough. 2019. “Just Seeing Reminders of Coffee Can Stimulate the Brain, UTSC Study Reveals,” https://utsc.utoronto.ca/news-events/breaking-research/just-seeing-reminders-coffee-can-stimulate-brain-utsc-study-reveals
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.