Does caffeinated coffee actually improve cognitive performance?

[Flannel Boy]

Yes.

http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/11/real-vs-placebo-coffee.html

Several interesting things happened. First, the caffeine enhanced performance on the cognitive tasks - it wasn't just a placebo effect.

Second, there was a small effect of expectancy on task performance in the placebo group - but it worked in reverse. People who were told that the coffee would make them do worse actually did better than those who expected the coffee to help them. Presumably, this is because they put in extra effort to try to overcome the supposedly negative effects.

Finally, no-one who got the decaf noticed that it didn't actually contain caffeine, and the volunteer's ratings of their alertness and mood didn't differ between the caffeine and placebo groups. So, this suggests that if you were to secretly replace someone's favorite blend with decaf, they wouldn't notice - although their performance would nevertheless decline.

[Insert Polish joke here]

[recursivelyenumerable]

Whenever I drink coffee in the morning all these neat ideas that have nothing to do with what I should be doing start flying through my head and I get too distracted by them to actually do any work for the first, like, 5 hours I'm there, and end up feeling guilty about that and staying till midnight to try and compensate. 

[Mr. Gundam]

So are you saying that when I desperately need to qualify a kid for special services, I should load them up on caffeine before administering a cognitive assessment to increase my odds of finding a discrepancy between their cognitive abilities and academic skills?

 

[Robo]

TIME FOR ANOTHER CUP

[Diunx]

Coffee

[Ganhyun]

Coffee

this.

 

[Draft]

God, I love coffee.

[Ganhyun]

God, I love coffee.

I know people and have a few family members who swear by it. But personally, I just can't stand coffee.

[TakingBackSunday]

Coffee is the best drug on earth

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've never had other drugs

[close]

[BlackMage]

I can't live without coffee.

[Bocsius]

I don't always drink coffee, but when I do, I prefer dos azucar.

[TEEEPO]

TEA AND COFFEE

[duckman2000]

Coffee

Zingermann's Brazilian Peaberry blend

[Flannel Boy]

Energy drinks and COFFEE (Image removed from quote.)

fixed