Running head: CHEWING GUM AND FALSE MEMORIES

Chew on this: The effects of chewing gum and the creation of false memories Jessy Hart, Ryenn Peterson, Rebecca See, and Khamsin Walcott Loras College

CHEWING GUM AND FALSE MEMORIES

Chew on this: The effects of chewing gum and the creation of false memories Chewing gum may have a possible effect on memory. Davidson (2011) looked at the effects of chewing caffeinated gum compared to chewing bubble gum or no gum at all. The results from the study showed that the caffeinated chewing gum did improve some aspects of memory but did not affect a persons concentration when compared to bubble gum and chewing no gum. Odor may be contributing to this chewing gum effect. A study by Zoladz and Raudenbush (2005) investigated the effects between odors and cognitive behavior. Phase I had participants complete cognitive tasks on a computer while chewing gum with different flavors such as flavorless gum, peppermint gum, cinnamon gum, cherry gum, and no gum at all. The Phase II was conducted where the participants completed tasks with four odors: no odor, peppermint, jasmine, and cinnamon. The results showed a significant relationship between the different odors and the tasks. The major odor, cinnamon, improved participants scores on tasks related to attention processes. To further study the relationship between chewing gum, odors, and memory, this study is specifically looking at chewing gum, odors and the production of false memories. The study by Roediger and McDermott (1995) looked at creating false memories using a set of wordlists. In each of the testings, the non-represented words were recalled 40% of the time. The researchers came to the conclusion that people tend to remember words that were not present when the wordlists were centered on a specific word that was not represented. Based on the studies cited above, the purpose of this study is to determine if the presence or absence of chewing gum will show a difference in the amount of false memories when trying to recall a given list of words. Our hypothesis is that chewing mint flavored gum will decrease

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the amount of false memories when compared to chewing fruit flavored gum and not chewing gum. Method Participants College age students (11 men, 12 women, M age = 19.5 years, age range: 18-22 years) of varying ethnicities (Caucasian, Asian and Latino/Hispanic) were recruited via the PSY 101 meta elearn site which is open to introductory psychology students. These students were chosen from intro psychology classes. Participants had the opportunity for class credit if they participated, but were not penalized if they did not participate. All participants were asked to bring a pencil for the activity. Materials The word lists were taken from the DRM false memory word lists. We used four of the twenty-four word lists provided. Each word list consisted of fifteen words and a critical word. We had two different flavors of gum used for the experiment: Dentyne ice mint flavored gum and a Stride fruit flavored gum from a local store. Paper was provided to record the words from the word list. A laptop with Microsoft PowerPoint was used for the word lists. We also had the use of a timer on a phone to keep track of the time taken to write the words. Procedure Participants were first given the informed consent form prior to the start of the test. After the participants gave their consent to be a part of the study, we collected the forms and gave each participant the demographic questions and a piece of lined paper. The participants supplied their own pencils, but we had extras in case some did not have any. The participants were then given either the Dentyne mint flavored gum, the Stride fruit flavored gum or no gum randomly. The

CHEWING GUM AND FALSE MEMORIES

participants were asked to write down the flavor of gum they received or no gum. The participants were then instructed to chew the gum while watching the power point presentation of the word lists. Each word was displayed on the screen for three seconds before changing to the next word. Participants were told not to write anything down until the word list was finished. After the word list was finished, the participants had one minute and thirty seconds to write down as many words as they remembered on the piece of paper. There were four word lists in which the participants were asked to complete. The first word list was used as practice and the results were not recorded because it was a practice word list. Results Twenty-three participants data was used in this study. The participants were divided into one of the three groups no gum, mint gum, and fruity gum (see table 1). The no gum group consisted of three males and six females of Caucasian and Asian ethnicities. The mint gum group consisted of five males and three females of Caucasian and Latino/Hispanic ethnicities. The fruity gum group consisted of four males and three females of Caucasian and Latino/Hispanic ethnicities. The highest occurring ethnicity was Caucasian at 83% (see figure 1). The no gum group had the highest number of false memories (M = 2.33, SD = 2.12), compared to the mint gum group (M = 2.14, SD = 2.12), and the fruity gum group (M = 1.14, SD = 0.69; see figure 2). A One-Way ANOVA concluded that there is no significant difference between the number of false memories created between the no gum, mint gum, and fruity gum (F (2, 20) = 0.93, p = 0.41). Tukey Post Hoc comparisons showed that there was no significant difference between the no gum (M = 2.33, SD = 2.12), mint gum (M = 2.14, SD = 2.12), and fruity gum (M = 1.14, SD = 0.69) groups. Discussion

CHEWING GUM AND FALSE MEMORIES

Due to a few participants not marking down whether they had a piece of gum or not, we had to discard three of the participants data. The total number of participants utilized in our data collection was twenty-three. Our findings showed that there is no significant difference in the creation of false memories while chewing gum and while not chewing gum. Therefore, we reject our alternative hypothesis that chewing mint flavored gum will decrease the amount of false memories than fruity gum or not chewing gum. We favor the null hypothesis of there being no difference in chewing mint gum versus fruity gum and not chewing gum. Some limitations of our study include people stopping gum chewing while trying to memorize the words and that the testing of the sirens was going on during the experiment. For future research in this area, we suggest an increase in the number of participants and increase in the ethnical diversity of the participants. We would also recommend looking further into different age groups.

CHEWING GUM AND FALSE MEMORIES

References Davidson, M.G. (2011). Herbal-caffeinated chewing gum, but not bubble gum, improves aspects of memory. Appetite, 57(2), 1-5. doi:10.1016/i.appet.2011.04.019 Roediger, H.L. & McDermott, K.B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 21(4), 803-814. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/xge/index.aspx Smith, A. (2009). Effects of chewing gum on mood, learning, memory and performance of an intelligence test. Nutritional Neuroscience, 12(2), 81-88. doi:L10.1179/147683009X423247 Zoladz, P.R. & Raudenbush, B. (2005). Cognitive enhancement through stimulation of the chemical senses. North American Journal of Psychology, 7(1), 125-140. Retrieved from http://najp.8m.com/

CHEWING GUM AND FALSE MEMORIES

Table 1. Demographics based on gum condition

No Gum Males Females Total Caucasian Asian Latino/Hispanic Age 18 Age 19 Age 20 Age 21 Age 22 Likes to Chew Gum Prefers- Mint Prefers- Fruity No Preference Does Not Like to Chew Gum 5 1 2 1 7 5 2 2 3 6 9 8 1

Mint Gum 5 3 7 5 2 1 4 1 1 7 7 -

Fruity Gum 4 3 7 6 1 2 3 1 1 6 5 1 1

CHEWING GUM AND FALSE MEMORIES

Figure 1. Percent of each ethnicity

Latino/Hispanic 13% Asian 4%

Caucasian 83%

Figure 1. Percent of each ethnicity

Figure 2. Frequency of false memories based on gum condition

Frequency of False Memories 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 No Gum Mint Gum Condition Fruity

Figure 2. Frequency of false memories based on gum condition