Intellect: Chewing Gum

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What effect does the act of chewing gum have on the intellect of an individual? It is said by many people, including psychologist, that chewing gum can increase your memory skills and enhance cognitive powers. The article Health Benefits of Gum Chewing said, “. . . people who chewed throughout tests produced significantly better scores than people who did not” (Greene). This is for many reasons, one being that the movement of our jaws improve memory, because the hippocampus - the part of the brain important for memory - increases when people chew. Chewing gum also increases the flow of our blood and the increase in our heart rate improves our oxygen levels. This wakes up the right and left hemispheres of our brain, letting them work together to complete whatever it is we are trying to complete. Health Benefits of Gum Chewing said, “studies have reported that blood flow to the brain increases by as much as 25 percent to 40 percent during gum chewing” (Greene). My research group is conducting our own experiment in order to see if chewing gum has any effect on the intellect of an individual. Based on our research our hypothesis is, if an individual chews gum while performing a test of intellectual capabilities, then they will score higher on that test than an individual who does not chew gum. Our independent variable is one piece of the type of chewing gum we will be giving each of our test groups: flavorless, mint, or fruit flavor are the three types. We are using three different flavors of chewing gum, including one with no flavor, to see if the increase in intellect has anything to do with the taste of the gum rather than just the movement of the jaw. We will use the results of each flavour to see if maybe a certain flavor s... ... middle of paper ... .... Now that our study has been published it can be sent out to be tested for new theories, such as maybe strawberry flavored gum helps your intellect more than mango flavored gum, and so on and so forth. Eventually they will find the exact brand of gum and the exact flavor of gum that increases the intellect the most, and schools around the world will administer that particular gum for all standardized tests that are really important so that everyone can focus and pass their tests to the best of their abilities. For example, in Florida that particular type of gum would be administered for test like FCAT, SAT, and ACT, and other places will do the same for their students. Works Cited Greene, Emma. "Health Benefits of Gum Chewing." Chewing Gum Facts. n. page. Web. 2 Feb. 2014. .

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