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Science Sphere ☕ Just the Smell of Coffee Can Boost Your Brainpower 👇🏻In 2018, a study was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology revealing that simply smelling a coffee-like aroma can sharpen your mind — even if there’s no caffeine involved. Two studies tested this. In the first, 114 undergraduate students were randomly placed in either a coffee-scented or unscented computer lab before completing an analytical reasoning task. Results showed that those in the scented environment performed better, with higher performance linked to heightened expectations.In the second study, 208 online participants imagined performing the task in the presence of different scents—regular coffee, decaf coffee, floral, or none. Coffee-related scents, even without caffeine, increased expectations of improved performance due to perceived increases in physiological arousal.The findings are explained through expectancy theory, which suggests that repeated associations between two events (e.g., smelling coffee and feeling alert) lead individuals to expect a certain outcome. Here, the coffee scent acted as a sensory cue, triggering the belief that performance would improve—leading to actual improvements, despite no biochemical effect from caffeine.The research extends previous work on ambient scent, showing for the first time that coffee-like aroma can serve as an environmental stimulus that influences behavior through placebo effects.RESEARCH PAPER 📄Adriana Madzharov et al, "The impact of coffee-like scent on expectations and performance.", Journal of Environmental Psychology (2018)