Stem Project on Concentration

Matt Davis, Chris Krein, Collin Muniain, Gavin Kane

Mr. Duda, Mrs. Trexler

STEM Project

11-15-16

Background Research

Concentration is the action or power of focusing one's attention or mental effort. Many people say that gum improves the concentration level of people. This is shown by taking tests with and without gum. Penn State did a study and they found that gum helped students improve their grades. They said gum helps because chewing causes an increase in arousal (which wakes you up), heart rate, blood pressure, and cerebral blood flow. Concentration of people not chewing gum will go down at the end of a test or a task of some sort. This is because the average attention span of a human is not very long. The average attention span is 8 seconds long for all ages which means that a goldfish can pay attention to something longer than a human(9 second average attention span)!

Many people need to do something that helps them to concentrate such as tapping their finger on the table. Roland Rotz ,owner of Lifespan Development, and Sarah D. Wright, well known ADHD Coach, believe fidgeting distracts part of the brain that has become bored so the other parts can pay attention to what we’re reading, hearing, or seeing. Chewing gum is that extra thing that can keep people concentrated on a task. When people are taking tests or doing different things, they can’t always have a stress ball or be clicking a pen obnoxiously, but they need something that helps them focus. Chewing gum is the solution that can help people concentrate better.

Concentration is also shown to go down when people get older. This is only true because of changes in the brain activity of grownups as they hit the middle age mark. Older people become more easily distracted. It is unsure whether more or less grownups (21-60) use items like stress balls, or chewing gum. However, as seen in many schools, many kids and teenagers do use things like that.

Surprisingly, a study from 2013 shows that people who are not chewing gum will actually perform better at a task during the beginning than the people chewing

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