Hi, sorry to bother you again.
I was reading your Nootropics piece on Nicotine., and I noticed that for your placebo, you "dried out" your gum in the hopes that the nicotine would evaporate.
Your criteria for determining that the "dry" gum had no effect was to swallow a 4 mg dose and note that you felt no effects. You reasoned you would notice the effects because it made you dizzy last time you took that dose - but then you also noted that you didn't eat dinner, which could have also caused the effect, confounding your judgement.
However, you also noted that your guesses as to whether or not you had the placebo were worse than chance. This means that you aught to assign low confidence to your ability to predict whether or not you are under the influence of nicotine. In light of this, shouldn't you re-evaluate your initial, subjective assessment that the "dry' nicotine gum was really devoid of nicotine?
It is possible that the reason you were having trouble guessing because you were getting nicotine both in the "dry" and regular gum, albeit probably at different doses. Do you have a good reason to be confident that the nicotine would evaporate quickly from gum, other than knowing that it evaporates quickly and not subjectively feeling any effects from a dry 4mg dose?
Apologies in advance if I'm missing something important.
Your criteria for determining that the "dry" gum had no effect was to swallow a 4 mg dose and note that you felt no effects. You reasoned you would notice the effects because it made you dizzy last time you took that dose - but then you also noted that you didn't eat dinner, which could have also caused the effect, confounding your judgement.
I don't recall eating dinner before the test either, so that wouldn't be a confound.
...However, you also noted that your guesses as to whether or not you had the placebo were worse than chance. This means t
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