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timtyler comments on Coffee: When it helps, when it hurts - Less Wrong
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Re: "Use caffeine for short-term performance on a focused task (such as an exam)."
Really? What about state-specific memory? If you are intoxicated by caffeine during an exam, don't you need to be taking it during the revision process as well?
Sure, I can imagine caffeine impeding long-term learning from exam revision.
But I find the increased focus to be much more important, for an exam that I've already studied for, and for material I will very likely never need to know in quite as much detail ever again.
There's 2 different kinds of studying I do. Studying conceptually for the long term, and cram time for a specific exam fitting in all the fine details, and then quickly regurgitating them. If it takes exam revision to significantly enhance the former, then I already learned too little, too late. That said, I commonly use caffeine for the latter with no regret of the side effects.
Tim's point is that things that you learn while on a specific substance (and so in a specific brain state) are actually more accessible while in that same state. So if you study without caffeine then perform with caffeine you don't access the memories as well as if you had studied with caffeine too. The reverse applies as well. As you say, the focus benefit you get probably gives you a net benefit from the caffeine regardless but state specific learning is worth considering.