Effect of caffeine on information processing using Stroop Task

Background: Caffeine is a pyschostimulant present in various beverages and known to alter alertness and performance by acting on the central nervous system. e Stroop task is a widely used tool in psychophysiology to understand the attention processes and is based on the principle that processing of two different kinds of information (like the word or colour) is parallel and at different speeds with a common response channel. Objectives: To determine effect of caffeine on information processing by virtue of observations obtained from classical colour-word Stroop task. Material and Methods: is study was conducted at the Department of Physiology, Pt JNM Medical College, Raipur CG. 42 healthy 1st year medical student volunteers in the age group of 18-25 years were recruited after explaining the procedure and taking written consent. Results: ere was a statistically significant reduction in pre caffeine and post caffeine reaction times across all three conditions in the stroop color-word test indicating faster information processing and choice selection post administration of caffeine in well rested volunteers. Our study clearly demonstrated a reduction in the reaction time post caffeine and it was statistically significant (p value <0.0001) for all three conditions. Conclusion: We therefore hypothesize that caffeine by altering the levels of neurotransmitters leads to processing of relevant information in the classical color word Stoop task which manifests as faster reaction times.