The Efficacy of Flickering Glasses as a Placebo in Enhancing Reading Performance in Individuals while assessing their heart rate.

This study investigates the effectiveness of flickering glasses as a placebo in improving reading skills, while assessing heart rate responses. Participants performed word and pseudoword reading tasks under three conditions: Baseline, Placebo, and Nocebo. Analysis of reaction times indicated significant differences, with the Placebo condition resulting in faster response times compared to the Baseline and Nocebo conditions. Words were identified quicker than pseudowords decoding in all conditions. Accuracy, however, was not influenced by placebo or nocebo conditioning, showing no significant differences between conditions. Heart rate data revealed that participants in the Placebo condition demonstrated a slight decrease in both mean and peak heart rates compared to the Baseline and Nocebo conditions, indicating that placebo effects also influenced the physiological parameters. These findings emphasise the effectiveness of placebo treatments, such as flickering glasses, to improve cognitive performance without affecting accuracy, while additionally impacting physiological responses.