Effects of Caffeine on Cognitive Tasks

The effects of caffeine (250 mg) and placebo on healthy controls were studied in a double-blind, cross over study on 24 healthy subjects who performed a working memory n-back task. Reaction time and accuracy levels were tested using the n-back working memory measure in cognitive neuroscience. An experimental study tested on the 1, 2 and 3-back tasks under the placebo/coffee condition. Based on the empirical results obtained in this study it can be concluded that changes produced by caffeine ingestion support the hypothesis that caffeine acts as a stimulant. However, it cannot be proven that the stimulant translates into enhanced motor processes with an improvement in performance.