Chewing Gum Experiment

I found this topic interesting because teachers are usually against chewing gum in the classroom and saying that it is distracting. My goal for this experiment is to prove that chewing gum helps with concentration and to get teachers to allow kids to chew gum during tests and quizzes. All of the research I was able to obtain completely supports my hypothesis. Each of my sources suggest that chewing gum makes a difference. Chewing gum is good for the brain and can boost alertness by 10%. It does not, however, help us think any faster. Performance is only boosted for the first 20-30 minutes of the test. After this, people chewing gum performed just as well as people not chewing gum. Also, simply pretending to chew gum does not give you the same effect.
This was an experimental study looking at whether chewing has an effect on attention and cognitive processing speed. Specialists had two groups of 20 individuals each listen to a 30-minute recording that included a succession of numbers. After listening, the members were asked to recall the succession. However, one of the groups chewed gum while the other did not. …show more content…
They also determined whether there were any differences in brain activity during the chewing and non-chewing activities. They found that chewing gum did cause some areas of the brain to become more active. People chewing gum had higher precision rates and quicker response times than the non-gum chewers. Likewise, they kept concentrate longer amid the activity. The researchers say that the gum increased the flow of oxygen to the parts of the brain responsible for attention. More oxygen can keep people alert and enhance their reflexes. Yet, some areas of the brain also associated with alertness actually became less active during chewing. They also found that reaction time was quicker when a person was chewing gum, but their accuracy did not