Repetitive Action and Cognitive Performance

Abstract

For many High School students, the repetitive action such as chewing gum is the ideal tool to help them achieve a consistent period of clear focus and wakefulness. However, as a chewing gum enthusiast, I have recently noticed a very unexpected pattern in my concentration performance when chewing gum compared to the task performed. Due to this particular reason, a study was designed in order to determine the type of task being performed and its relationship to the effectiveness of repetitive action (this study will only examine the repetitive action of chewing) on concentration when performing different tasks (Complex task & Simple task). The research study includes a review of literature, survey, and data analysis. The review of already existing literature regarding chewing gum and cognitive performance suggests that the action of chewing can serve as a distraction in specific environments (such as during an exam) and participants of the Tucha and Simpson study only showed more sustained attention 30 minutes into the study, with the prior time suffering from less sustained attention than usual. The survey data suggests a pattern between sustained attention in relation to the task performed. While chewing gum, the subject’s performance worsens while conducting a complex task (tasks requiring critical thinking skills), such as completing exams, solving puzzles, and memorizing specific details, but improves while conducting repetitive or hands-on tasks, such as exercising, copying, and coloring. The pattern may also exist between high accuracy tasks and low accuracy tasks, therefore accuracy may also be a distinguishing factor for chewing gum’s cognitive influence.