Using evidence from the psychological literature, discuss the media claim that ‘smart drugs’ are harmful.
- Created by: Meg Fraser
- Created on: 12-01-17 14:12
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- The effects of smart drugs
- They make you stupid
- The Metro
- A pill used by students to give them a mental edge is doing the opposite
- Modafinil makes you stupid
- Drugs slows impulsive responses without performance detriment
- Mohamed and Lewis (2014)
- Effect of modafinil on reaction times
- Double blind placebo design with the Hayling Sentence Completion Task (HSCT)
- Complete sentence with related or unrelated word
- May not be sensitive enough to measure accuracy
- Ceiling effects - not many errors in unrelated word condition
- Reaction times longer in drug condition
- No difference between drug or placebo condition in number of errors
- No self-rated effects of the drug
- They do not make you stupid
- They do not make you stupid
- The Metro
- Smart drugs
- Drugs that improve psychological processes that underlie intelligence
- Example: Modafinil - dopamine reuptake inhibitor that improves STM and planning activities
- No side effects
- The Daily Express
- Drug that boots brain function has zero side effects
- Limited but cannot say zero
- Modafinil improves attention, learning, flexibility and planning
- Drug that boots brain function has zero side effects
- Battleday and Brem. (2015)
- Review of studies on Modafinil and cognition from 1990 to 2014
- Mixed findings on cognition in the simple tasks
- Improved cognition in the complex tasks
- Cognitive impairments found but rarely and inconsistently
- Only 9 out of 24 studies reported the side effects
- 2 reported side effects for minority of insomnia, headaches etc.
- The Daily Express
- Makes men last longer
- The Sun
- 100mg before sex and two weeks later, can go for 15 mins
- Side effects can include fever, vomiting and blistered skin
- The Sun
- They make you stupid
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