Butter Mind

Objective

Butter Mind will test the hypothesis that butter improves math performance/reaction times. This study will mimic Seth Roberts' experience eating butter daily and testing himself using a simple 32-problem quiz. This study will look at two additional groups: coconut oil eaters and a control group. All groups will perform the math quiz ("Daily Math").

Description

Will Butter Make You Smarter? Introducing Butter Mind...and Coconut Mind Will eating one of these fats improve your math performance? Based on Seth Roberts' butter and math study, recently presented at a Bay Area Quantified Self Show & Tell, during which Seth ate half a stick of butter each day and performed better in math, we expect the answer to be yes.

Seth was able to reduce his time by 30 milliseconds. Will others who try a similar experiment experience the same change?

This study is meant to mimic Seth Roberts' study, with the addition of a coconut oil group. Many thanks to Seth for his advice and help getting this started!

Additional details:

Results will be statistically analyzed, hacked and visualized (and new studies brainstormed) during Science Hack Day, November 13-14, Institute for the Future. You can join for the Science Hack Day portion only by registering here.
New results will be posted to the QS blog throughout the study
Interested participants will receive a form requesting data on lifestyle factors at some point during the study. Participation is optional but there will be prizes!

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gbiggers Hi @KennyBruse, if you are interested in this study, you might want to join the follow up study, Butter Mind 3 < http://genomera.com/studies/butter-mind-3-cognitive-effects-of-butter>

gbiggers Note: we changed the name of the new follow-on butter study. You can find it here if you'd like to participate: http://genomera.com/studies/butter-mind-3-cognitive-effects-of-butter

New study results are available!

While the Control and Coconut oil groups have difference scores of nearly zero, the Butter group has a negative difference score. A Wilcoxon test gives one-tailed p = .006, showing that the scores of those in the Butter group were significantly improved during the treatment phase. This is evidence that butter improves performance on simple math.

posted by gbiggers

Alex_C This is a new analysis of the study that was completed about two years ago?

gbiggers We are flowing the analysis the group did into the new Genomera features for displaying results.

gbiggers We are looking for a couple of people to help pilot a new butter study. @yoni, from the doctoral program at Stanford, is organizing a butter mind 3 study, using some new cognitive measurement instruments. It is a brand new study, and it is connecting to an external app for the instrument. So we would like to pilot the study with a small group before inviting more. If you would be up for helping replicate/test the results of butter mind with a follow on study, please come join Butter Mind 3: http://genomera.com/studies/cognitive-effects-of-butter-or-butter-mind-3

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