Studying the Effects of Chewing Gum on Memory Performance

This study investigated the effect of chewing gum on memory performance. It was predicted that gum-chewing would increase both immediate and delayed recall. Participants studied lists of words, which they freely recalled either immediately or after 5 minutes. Results show that participants chewing gum outperformed non-chewers on both tasks. The effect may be due to an increase in cerebral blood flow.

The Effects of Chewing Gum on the Probability of Recall

Many people chew gum partly due to the belief that it increases aspects of mental performance. However, there is no empirical evidence for this notion.

Gum-chewing does have an effect on some biological measures, however. For example, Sesay and Tanaka (2000) reported that chewing resulted in an increase in cerebral blood flow. This, in turn, may boost memory performance.

The present study was intended to examine whether gum-chewing can aid in different measures of memory performance. In this experiment, some participants were instructed to chew gum while taking part in memory tests; a control group did not chew during the tests. We expected to find superior performance by the former group.

Method

Participants

Fifty young adults (mean age of 24 years; 32 females) participated in this experiment. They received course credit in return for their participation.

Materials

There were five word lists, each consisting of 15 one- and two- syllable words. They were presented on a computer screen. Wrigley’s Extra Spearmint gum was used.

Procedure

Half of participants chewed gum throughout the study and test sessions, whereas the others did not. All were instructed to remember the presented words for a recall test. Each word from a list was seen for four seconds. Participants were asked to write down all the words they could remember, either immediately, or after a 5-minute delay.

Results

On the immediate test, the chewing group recalled more words than the non-chewing group (M=8.62 and 6.93; SD=1.62 and 1.88, for chewers and non-chewers, respectively; see Figure 1). This difference was statistically significant, t(49)=2.10, p<.05.

Figure 1. Mean number of words recalled as a function of chewing condition and time of recall.

Discussion

This study examined the effect of gum-chewing on memory performance. The results supported the hypothesis, in that chewing gum increased memory for words in both immediate and delayed recall. This finding provides the first evidence that chewing gum can improve episodic memory.

One issue not addressed in the present article is whether the effects of gum-chewing occurred at encoding, at retrieval, or both. Also, it is unclear from this study what mechanisms are involved in the effect. It could be that increased cerebral blood flow results from chewing (Sesay et al., 2000), which aids in cognitive processes. These issues await further investigation.

In summary, it has been shown that chewing gum is an effective method for improving memory performance in a simple memory task.