Neuroscience For Kids
Stick to Standard Spoons
October 26, 2010
If you are sick, you sometimes need to take liquid medicine. But don't
use a kitchen spoon to measure the amount of medicine because you are
likely to make a mistake! That is the conclusion of an experiment that
tested the ability of people to measure liquid in spoons of different
sizes.
Drs. Brian Wansink and Koert van Ittersum at Cornell University had 195
students measure one teaspoon (5 ml) of cold medicine in three different
spoons: a teaspoon, a medium-sized tablespoon (15 ml capacity) and a
large-sized spoon (45 ml capacity). When students used the medium-sized
spoon, they poured an average of only 4.58 ml of medicine; when they used
the large spoon, they poured an average of 5.58 ml of medicine.
The medium-sized spoon, therefore, caused the students to measure 8.4% LESS medicine, while the large spoon caused the students to measure 11.6% MORE medicine. The students were unaware that they had made these mistakes and felt confident that they had measured the correct amounts.
Although the dosing mistakes seem small, a large error in the total
amount of medicine may result if a person continues to make incorrect
measurements over a few days.
Possible Science Fair Projects
Compare measuring errors:
- People of different ages.
- Males and females.
- People who do a lot of cooking to those people who do not cook.
- Using different types of spoons.
- Using solids such as salt or sand (volume or weight).
References and more information:
- Wansink, B., van Ittersum, K., Spoons systematically bias dosing of liquid medicine, Ann. Internal Medicine, 152:66-67, 2010.
Copyright © 1996-2010, Eric H. Chudler, University of Washington
