In Western culture and thinking, coffee has long been associated with productivity. According to staff at the University of Toronto, this connection has reached the point that even a hint of this drink (thought or gaze) affects the way our mind works.
“Coffee is considered one of the most popular drinks, and a lot is already known about its physical effects. Much less is known about its psychological significance. In other words, how even visible images reminiscent of him can affect the way we think,”says study co-author Sam Maglio. The article itself was published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.
Together with another researcher, Eugene Chan, Maglio examined a psychological effect called "fixation of attitude," or priming. According to them, due to priming, the impact of even subtle, almost imperceptible signals or stimuli can change our perception of the world around us, our thoughts and behavior.
Since in our daily life we often come across images associated with coffee, or think about the drinks themselves, we often go through the process of fixing the attitude on coffee. The study authors decided to find out if this really has a noticeable effect on people, whether there is a connection between coffee and arousal in the body - whether their physiological arousal increases as much as if they actually drank coffee.
Arousal refers to a state of wakefulness and alertness: in the brain, it is mediated by specific areas of the brain that increase and then maintain their levels of activity. The authors explain that mental arousal can be triggered by many things, including emotions, neurotransmitters in the brain, or the caffeine we consume (which is why coffee can "wake up"). But does a simple look at coffee and the drink itself have the same effect on our body?
To find out, the research team conducted four separate studies, working with different actors from both Western and Eastern cultures. A wide cultural range of subjects was needed so that experts could compare the effects of signals associated with both coffee and tea. In the course of their work, they found that participants exposed to coffee-related cues perceived time as shorter and thought in more specific and precise terms.
“People who experience physiological arousal - again, in this case as a result of priming, and not because of drinking the coffee itself - see the world in more concrete, detailed terms. This has a number of implications for how people process information and make decisions,”says Maglio.
This effect was relatively strong for Westerners, but not as pronounced for those who grew up in the East. Experts believe that this is due to differences in the perception of coffee between the two cultural groups. According to them, in North America, for example, there is an image of a business businessman rushing to an important meeting with a triple espresso in hand, but in other cultures there is no such thing.
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In the future, the authors plan to continue this line of research and examine people's associations with different foods and drinks, as well as how they affect the effect of priming.
Dmitry Mazalev
