Paul Duckett

AROMAS OF ROSEMARY AND LAVENDER ESSENTIAL OILS DIFFERENTIALLY AFFECT COGNITION AND MOOD IN HEALTHY ADULTS

This study was designed to assess the olfactory impact of the essential oils of lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and rosemary (Rosmarlnus officinalis) on cognitive performance and mood in healthy volunteers. One hundred and forty-four participants were randomly assigned to one of three independent groups, and subsequently performed the Cognitive Drug Research (CDR) computerized cognitive assessment battery in a cubicle containing either one of the two odors or no odor (control). Visual analogue mood questionnaires were completed prior to exposure to the odor, and subsequently after completion of the test battery. The participants were deceived as to the genuine aim of the study until the completion of testing to prevent expectancy effects from possibly influencing the data. The outcome variables from the nine tasks that constitute the CDR core battery feed into six factors that represent different aspects of cognitive functioning. Analysis of performance revealed that lavender produced a significant decrement in performance of working memory, and impaired reaction times for both memory and attention based tasks compared to controls. In contrast, rosemary produced a significant enhancement of performance for overall quality of memory and secondary memory factors, but also produced an impairment of speed of memory compared to controls. With regard to mood, comparisons of the change in ratings from baseline to post-test revealed that following the completion of the cognitive assessment battery, both the control and lavender groups were significantly less alert than the rosemary condition; however, the control group was significantly less content than both rosemary and lavender conditions. These findings indicate that the olfactory properties of these essential oils can produce objective effects on cognitive performance, as well as subjective effects on mood.

Consultation and Participation with Children in Healthy Schools: Choice, Conflict and Context

In this paper we report on our use of a participatory research methodology to consult with children in the UK on how to improve pupil well-being in secondary schools, framed within the wider social policy context of healthy schools. We worked with children on the selection of our research methods and sought to voice the views of children to a local education authority to improve the design of school environments. The consultation process ultimately failed not because the children were unforthcoming with their views on either methods or on well-being in schools, but because of difficulties in how their views were received by adults. We show how the socio-economic, cultural and political context in which those difficulties were set might have led to the eventual break down of the consultation process, and we draw out a number of possible implications for consultative and participatory work with children in school settings.

The emancipation of visually impaired people in social science research practice

In 1999 we began research, funded by the ‘Thomas Pocklington Trust’, to explore the opinions of visually impaired people on visual impairment research. We found people wanted greater inclusion of visually impaired people in such research and participatory, empowering and emancipatory research was a priority for them. We also found, through reviewing the academic literature, that there was a dearth of such work in the field. In this article we revisit the topic to review research that has or has not been conducted since our first study to see if there has been a change in the use of emancipatory methods in the field. We have contextualized our review in a discussion on the field of disability studies and the international social policy context of disability issues. We found a growth of interest and activity in participatory, emancipatory and empowering research in the field of disability research more generally. There was also some indication that the social model of disability has had an impact on national and international social policy. However, our review found that there continues to be a dearth of emancipatory research in relation to visual impairment. The one study we did locate highlighted how participatory methods are not, in our view, necessarily consistent with the epistemological underpinnings of emancipatory methods. We believe the call from within disability studies for the greater use of emancipatory research methods has not been sufficiently realized in the field of visual impairment and more needs to be done to ground politically informed epistemological understandings in visual impairment research if more progress is to be made.