After-effects of the common cold on mood and performance

Thomas, Marie A. and Whitney, Helen 2000. After-effects of the common cold on mood and performance. Ergonomics 43 (9) , pp. 1342-1349. 10.1080/001401300421789

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Abstract

The present study examined whether volunteers who had recently had common colds showed impairments in mood and performance in the weeks following the illness. All volunteers (n = 24) were tested when healthy to provide baseline data for simple and choice reaction time tasks, attention and memory tasks and ratings of mood. When participants developed a cold (n = 13) they returned to the laboratory so that the illness could be verified. When they were symptom free they returned to the laboratory and repeated the procedure. They then completed the study with a final session 1 week later. Volunteers (n = 11) who remained healthy over 10 weeks were recalled as controls and also repeated the procedures. The results showed that those who had recently had colds showed few impairments in mental performance and mood. Taken together with the results of previous studies, this suggests that after-effects of viral infection are largely restricted to severe illnesses such as infectious mononucleosis and influenza. After-effects of colds may occur but these probably reflect poor learning at the time of the illness.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Uncontrolled Keywords:	After-EFFECTS; Upper Respiratory Tract Illnesses; Common Cold; Mood; Reaction Time; Cognitive Performance
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	0014-0139
Last Modified:	12 Feb 2016 09:47
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/34393

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