Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

news.uark.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 208 posts

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#171

Post by basq »

olejorgenb wrote: post #36
dacohenii wrote: post #23

Thank you for linking to the paper. The study measures the effects of regular caffeine users: > Participants were invited to participate if they were between 18-35 years of age, consumed between 1-2 cups of caffeinated beverages per day at least 5 days a week, did not smoke, were native English speakers, and took no psychiatric medications or painkillers on a regular basis. > [...] > Participants were asked to abstai…

Yeah, seems like a major flaw to tbh. > Typically, the onset of symptoms starts 12 to 24 hours after caffeine cessation, peaks at 20–51 hours, and may last up to two to nine days. > The severity of symptoms vary from individual to individual, and most commonly include a headache, fatigue, decreased energy/activeness, decreased alertness, drowsiness, decreased contentedness, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating ,…

I've been doing 'days off' off coffee amd I'm inclined to sleep waaaay more. Like from 8 hours to 14. It can be a massive trade off in productivity. I have to set aside light workloads for those days.

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#172

Post by lobotryas »

arduinomancer wrote: post #127
simonsarris wrote: post #68

Ha, if true that would confirm Balzac's claim: > Coffee is a great power in my life; I have observed its effects on an epic scale. Coffee roasts your insides. Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring. From "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee, 1830, http://blissbat.net/balzac.html

“The 200mg enhanced problem solving significantly, but had no effect on creative thinking,” said Zabelina. “It also didn’t make it worse, so keep drinking your coffee; it won’t interfere with these abilities.” So not really I guess

You are missing Balzac’s point. He is saying that it makes boring people more productive; not more interesting.

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#174

Post by riversflow »

codyb wrote: post #143
chrisweekly wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll risk being downvoted for nitpicking in an attempt to be helpful about "affect" vs "effect": Did it affect you? Yes, it had an effect. The psych study showed the meds were effective in improving patents' affect (mood). I want to effect (bring about) change by doing X. HTH!

It really is a pain in the butt since both effect and affect have noun and verb forms. What a language.

I had a couple of teachers who were ridiculous sticklers about this in highschool. My hack is remembering the two phrases Affect A change vs cause and effect.

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#175

Post by econcon »

DantesKite wrote: post #57

On a side note, I really enjoy the taste of coffee. I try not to drink more than one cup a day, but I wonder now about what would happen if I stopped cold turkey. Maybe a couple days reset wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Nothing changed for me, went from 2 cups to 0 cold turkey. Zero effects.

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#176

Post by chrstphrhrt »

oh_sigh wrote: post #132
petra wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it help with solving hard problems ?

Personally, weed might help in the creative phase of problem solving, but if it requires working memory weed is a big negative(at least how it affects me)

I think including some CBD in there negates the memory issues.

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#177

Post by porknubbins »

copperx wrote: post #155
pandigital wrote: post #147

Erdos[0] certainly felt his creativity was helped by caffeine (and amphetamines). From personal experience, math professors seem to be the most reliable academic users of nicotine and caffeine. I'm skeptical they are all deluding themselves. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

From my experience, amphetamines make the crazy ideas you've had all along feel actionable. You then put a lot of work on them and they produce fruits. Then you get off amphetamines and you're amazed at how much you accomplished. I still go back to some projects that I did while on Adderall and am in awe of how much I accomplished in a few months on my own, and how many of my ideas that I had simmered in my head for…

I like how you put that “the crazy ideas you’ve had all along feel actionable”. This is the only way I can write anything- with caffeine all the crazy ideas in my head seem worth expressing.

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#178

Post by yalogin »

How reliable are these double blind studies? How do they know they are guaranteeing that only caffeine is impacting their abilities at that moment? There could be a ton of other factors that could be playing a part here. Can we be sure that x number of users is enough to remove those extraneous factors? These kind of studies feel very odd.

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#179

Post by navjack27 »

rhombocombus wrote: post #43

So do the ADHD meds I take; huge gains in problem solving and execution, not so much in the creativity front. I wonder if this is a general psychological feature of stimulants

If you have ADHD then no. You can only get possibly near a neurotypical brain.

Re: Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates

#180

Post by shrimp_emoji »

Proziam wrote: post #32
throwsprtsdy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I was recently cramming a lot of "Leetcode medium" questions to prepare for job interviews, and after a couple of weeks, I was drinking Starbuck's coffee and solving those problems like a machine... seriously, like a machine . I found I did get better (or at least much faster) at recognizing subproblems and quickly composing an overall solution, even if none of the steps was particularly creative. After…

Another anecdote, but when prepping for any sort of competition I used to be a hard-core caffeine consumer (measurable in grams, instead of mg) and it sometimes led to some weird effects. After a day or two of that level of caffeine intake, I go into an almost trance of productivity and performance. It feels like I'm watching myself do what I need to do, not that I have to 'do it' myself. It's a very strange sensatio…

I wish I could experiment with it like you, but the risk that it'll send me into an anxiety episode that feels like a heart attack/food poisoning combo and which begins in the middle of the night in a sweat-soaked bed and leads with waking up in a colder, harder bed (the floor) because you passed out when you got out of bed because the blood pressure drop to your brain was too intense because your heart was beating too fast to pump blood quickly enough to adjust and continues with at least one day of zombified, ambient nausea and terror is just too high for it to possibly be worth it.

(Cacao did this to me, btw, after I consumed a ton of it one time. Theobromine -- scuffed caffeine; caffeine without a methyl group that hardly passes the blood-brain barrier! I don't want to think about how that much ACTUAL caffeine would feel...)

Post reply on HN