Is it true that if you study with caffeine in your bloodstream, you won’t remember any of it WITHOUT caffeine in your bloodstream?
That’s an old theory called “state-bound memory.” It is misapplied in this instance.
My ex-boyfriend swore by it. Of course, he also tended to be a complete flippin’ moron.
I haven’t had a chance to test the theory, but I have tested its opposite – I have no problems staying up late to study, it’s waking up the next morning and staying awake through the test that’s the problem. I can safely say that I am able to recall in a highly caffeinated state that which I studied in a far less caffeinated state.
Absolutely not true. I can still semi-intelligently discuss the philosophy of Descartes, even though when I was studying for that particular exam in college, I was hopped up on about six Cokes and a pot of coffee.
Besides, think about it; this rumor doesn’t even make any sense. Millions of people in the world (or at least thousands) go through every day with caffeine in their bloodstreams. Does it make sense that if these people were to suddenly give up caffeine, or go without for a day, that they would immediately forget everything they’d learned over the past however many years? I don’t think so.
I used to know the answer to this, but I forgot it. I think I need more coffee.
Oh, for Pete’s sake… Like Chas. E said, it’s a misapplication of a Psych 101 concept. Now, if memory and logic serve me correctly, the idea is that if you are learning something, recreating the exact environment under which a task was learned will aid in recall. Seems really logical. We do something similar all the time? Ever forget something, say, why you walked into a room? What’s do you normally do to figure it out? You retrace your steps, and try to recreate your environment in order to help you remember what compelled you to walk into the kitchen.
It’s a similar concept with studying. If you are listening to classical music while studying, it MAY be helpful for you to take a test with the same music playing. Perhaps a certain cadence in a song may trigger the memory of something you read. That’s the basic mechanism at work here, from my recollection.
Now, what you are describing goes one step further…recreating your physical state as well. There were rumors in college that if you studied high, you should take the test high to do better. Whether this works or not, I don’t know. The claim might be credible…it’s seems to be an extension of the above. However, to go from that claim that if you’re not high you won’t remember ANYTHING is a load of monkey’s bollox. C’mon, think about it.
Your friend might have a claim to the statement that “if you study with caffeine in your bloodstream the taking the test with caffeine in your bloodstream may aid recall.” But you certainly will not lose all recollection of what you’ve learned. And if your friend doesn’t believe you, it’s easy enough to test his hypothesis.
I’d never heard this rumour before, but I’ve read various articles which indicate that the real problem is that the memory doesn’t work as well when you’re tired. You just don’t remember as much the next day as you would if you’d done the work when you’re fresh. People may have misattributed this to the coffee.
So studying late at night, whether you’re on caffeine or not, is not tremendously efficient. Better to go to bed regularly and study during the day and early evening.
[/dad voice]
However, studies have shown that you test better when you have a cold, according to Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, though I can’t remember which volume. Nor could I find any sites to back this up.
I seem to remember hearing somewhere that you remember things you did while you were drunk better the next time you get drunk.
So if you, say, get inebriated and take your shirt off and dance on top of a table, you might conveniently forget that you did this when you wake up with a monster hangover the next day. But the next time you decide to chug a screwdriver, the memory will come back to you.
Hopefully, you’ll be drunk enough not to be embarrased, but not so drunk you think it would be a good idea to do it again.
Anybody know if this is true?
Caffeine … not … in … bloodstream … ?
I’m reading the words but they don’t make any sense.
Or “state-dependent learning”, which is what it went by at my university.
Most of us assumed it was simply the pothead’s rationale for getting stoned before the test.
Empirical data (personally verified): studying stoned tends to cause less of the material to “sink in”; taking the test stoned allows you to be not too worried that the relevant material hadn’t “sunk in” the night before.
Cause, process, solution? I have no idea. (Must’ve been stoned when I studied all that years ago…)
No, definitely wrong. Caffeine works by blocking some chemical (errr. Ignore this brainlapse.) which has little or nothing to do with the formation and recall of memories.
Besides, I do all of my studying in a highly caffeinated state - around morning, on the bus and before First hour. I can still tell you who the Indo-Europeans were, how to find the electron configuration of sulphuric acid and what a gerund is.
It’s rubbish.
Efficiency of recall is all to do with the efficiency of memorisation, not what you are eating or drinking at the time. I happen to know the 8 times World Memory Champion, Dominic O’Brien, and he’s written a book on revising for exams. Check it out, and learn how easy it can be to remember whatever you want for an exam. (I have no commercial interest in this!)
Oh, and memory formation is a COMPLETELY different mental task from conscious recall. I can’t remember but there are a number of seperate tasks associated with the manipulation of memories in the brain and people can be good at one but poor at another. For instance, take a genius suffering from lethologica (Maybe from a certain type of aphasia). This person may have a tremendous capacity to FORM memories, but a horrible ability to RECALL them. A more accessible example: When your put on the spot to introduce someone who you know very well, but because of the social anxiety, you completely forget there name. That is state dependent memory working against you.
That previous post was an addition to a post that seemed to have fallen in the void.
Alot of people are giving mildly authoritative answers without much thought. I would tend to hold off on answers to this question without hard evidence as the brain has a habit of busting hypothesis out of the water because of its non-linear dynamic nature. Having said that I will mildly speculate.
- First off, correction. Caffeine, while actually irrelevant to the question at hand, does help in the formation of SOME types of memories. It raises adrenalin which does burn “imprint” type memories. The reason you remember not to put your hand on the hot stove after the first time is because of the release of adrenalian cum vasopressin helps form memories quickly so you dont have to burn your hand off completely before you learn not to burn your hand :).
- From my novice understanding of the brain, I would speculate that memory is indeed state dependent. Whenever you take a drug that inhibits/excites the neocortex relative to the another part of the brain, you are making massive changes to how the brain deals with information. Sort of like changing the operating system version of your comp. Certain pathways get greater chance of being accessed than before. If you take the drug again later, the brain is running with an operating system more similar to to the one when the memory was formed. Imagine accessing the registry created by windows 95 under win95 vs. 98. Ok so maybe that’s not a great analogy but then again im only speculating.