Scientists find gloomy days are good for brain

[Naveed Yaseen]

Every cloud really does have a silver lining, according to a new study. Scientists say research has found that gloomy days are in fact good for the brain.

The psychologists discovered that people performed better in memory tests when the weather was bad and they were feeling grumpy. Their scores were three times higher than on sunny days when they were happy and carefree.

The findings were made by the University of New South Wales School of Psychology. The Australian team carried out the study by questioning shoppers at a Sydney store over two months.

Professor Joe Forgas, who led the research, said: “It seems counter-intuitive but a little bit of sadness is a good thing. People performed much better on our memory test when the weather was unpleasant and they were in a slightly negative mood. On bright sunny days, when they were more likely to be happy and carefree, they flunked it.”

In the tests, the researchers randomly placed ten small ornamental objects on the check-out counter.

They included plastic animal figures, a toy cannon, a pink piggy bank and four small matchbox-sized vehicles, including a red London bus and a tractor.

On rainy days, sad music was played in the store. When it was bright and sunny, customers heard happy music. This was done to “further influence them towards negative or positive moods”, the researchers said.

After their shopping, customers were asked how many of the objects they could remember. During bad weather, they could recall three times as many items as on sunny days. The results were published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

“They point to a growing body of evidence that the way people think, the quality of their judgements and the accuracy of their memory are all significantly influenced by positive and negative moods,” the researchers said. They concluded that ‘memory is far more accurate’ on gloomy days.

Professor Forgas added: “More and more evidence from experiments like this is showing that mild, fleeting moods can have a profound yet subconscious influence on how people think and deal with information. Being happy tends to promote a thinking style that is less focused on our surroundings. In a positive mood we are more likely to make more snap judgments about people we meet. We are more forgetful and yet we are paradoxically far more likely to be over-confident that our recall is correct. Mild negative mood, in turn, tends to increase attention to our surroundings and produce a more careful, thorough thinking style. Accurately remembering mundane, everyday scenes is a difficult and demanding task, yet such memories can be of crucial importance in everyday life, as well as in forensic and legal practice. Surprisingly, the influence of mood states on the accuracy of real-life memories is still poorly understood.”

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