Time of day and cognitive performance : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

It is apparent that some individuals perform better on certain tasks as the day progresses. Folkard (1975) found that as arousal increases throughout the day, so does performance on immediate processing tasks. We tested this theory by administering anagrams and sample GRE questions to ninety-nine participants. Our results were similar to Folkard's results. Anagram solving performance significantly increased from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m; thus showing, that it may be beneficial for a student to take classes later in the day as opposed to earlier in the day.