Wednesday, April 8, 2009

A Chocolate Candy Bar Can Help You Pass Your Exams

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian physiologist, psychologist, and physician and a Nobel Prize winner who used dogs as experimental subjects for the phenomenon of classical conditioning. He taught dogs to associate the ringing of a bell with feeding time. When the bell rang the dogs would start to salivate. Pavlov’s study was the first major breakthrough in how our brain works.

Our memory works on the same principle. We can be taught to associate things to remember, such as when studying for an exam. You can, in fact, use chocolate candy bars to help you get better grades on an exam or just better grades in general. How? The smell and taste of a chocolate bar is such a strong one that it can be used as a mental marker to help you remember things you normally wouldn't.


Have you ever had a memory from your childhood pop into your brain when you passed a bakery shop and smelled the chocolate cookies baking? This is called associative recall. You associate the smell of chocolate cookies baking with the memory of maybe your mom or grandmother baking cookies when you were growing up. The smell is so great that is forces your brain to recall not only the smell but the images and word of that memory. Using a chocolate bar for studying will help with your recall.


For example, if you’re studying for a math exam and you have to remember the Pythagorean Theorem but it just won’t stick in your brain. Eating a chocolate bar while studying will help you remember the theorem when taking your exam. While taking the exam keep a chocolate bar handy to help you remember. The smell of the chocolate brings you right back to the day before when you were staring at that theorem. Suddenly, the smell of the chocolate will give you a mental reminder of the theorem you were studying the day before and you will pass your exam.


The reason chocolate works so well is it has such a strong and distinctive smell your brain will kick in when you smell it during the exam. Whether it’s white or dark chocolate it’s the smell that will jump start your brain into remembering.


You can do this with any type of fruit, herbs, candle, incense or food. However, lighting up a candle or incense during an exam might be frowned upon. The same goes for bringing in a bowl of spaghetti loaded with garlic. It may work while studying but it won’t go over very will in class. As with the dogs in Pavlov’s study you should use the same smell every time you study so your brain is conditioned to the smell.


As with anything, eating too much chocolate or too much of anything will cause you to gain weight. Sometimes using the wrapper or a scratch and sniff sticker is enough to help your brain start remembering what you need to pass your exam.

5 comments:

  1. This is a blog. Not a reliable source of information.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How could you believe this if it is a blog

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree. Any old person could have posted this 'information'.

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  3. this is completely insane

    ReplyDelete