Caffeine May Speed Up Word Recognition

A couple of cups of coffee may help our brains process some words faster, a small experiment suggests. But we only get the message faster if the words are emotionally positive. The study included 66 healthy young men. They were told to consume no caffeine, nicotine or alcohol in the 12 hours before the experiment. The men were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group took a tablet containing 200 milligrams of coffee, about the amount in 2 to 3 cups of coffee. Each person in the other group received a placebo (fake) pill. Half an hour later, the men were given tests that involved being shown a series of real and invented words. They had to press buttons to indicate whether a word was real or not. Men who took the caffeine pills did this faster and more accurately for words with a positive emotional connotation.