Coffee and tea are two beverages commonly-consumed around the world. In Western societies, coffee is associated with greater arousal than tea. According to a new study, published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, even looking at something that reminds of coffee can stimulate our brain, mimicking the physical effects of ingesting the beverage.
Exposure to coffee-related cues increases arousal.
“Coffee is one of the most popular beverages and a lot is known about its physical effects. Much less is known about its psychological meaning — in other words, how even seeing reminders of it can influence how we think,” said co-author Dr. Sam Maglio, a researcher at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada.
Dr. Maglio and his colleague, Monash University’s Dr. Eugene Chan, looked at an effect called priming, through which exposure to even subtle cues can influence our thoughts and behavior.
“People often encounter coffee-related cues, or think about coffee, without actually ingesting it. We wanted to see if there was an association between coffee and arousal such that if we simply exposed people to coffee-related cues, their physiological arousal would increase, as it would if they had actually drank coffee,” Dr. Maglio said.
Arousal in psychology refers to how specific areas of the brain get activated into a state of being alert, awake and attentive.
It can be triggered by a number of things, including our emotions, neurotransmitters in the brain, or the caffeinated beverages we consume.
The study authors wanted to explore how simply being exposed to things that remind us of coffee may have an effect on arousal.
In four experiments, they compared coffee- and tea-related cues. They found that participants exposed to coffee-related cues perceived time as shorter and thought in more concrete, precise terms.
“People who experience physiological arousal — again, in this case as the result of priming and not drinking coffee itself — see the world in more specific, detailed terms,” Dr. Maglio said.
“This has a number of implications for how people process information and make judgments and decisions.”
However, the effect was not as strong among participants who grew up in Eastern cultures.
The scientists speculate that the association between coffee and arousal is not as strong in less coffee-dominated cultures.
“In North America we have this image of a prototypical executive rushing off to an important meeting with a triple espresso in their hand. There’s this connection between drinking caffeine and arousal that may not exist in other cultures,” Dr. Maglio said.
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Eugene Y. Chan & Sam J. Maglio. 2019. Coffee cues elevate arousal and reduce level of construal. Consciousness and Cognition 70: 57-69; doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2019.02.007
