"What accounts for popcorn’s seemingly talismanic power? The researchers’ explanation is that it’s not popcorn at all; it’s eating—specifically, chewing. When people read something, they tend to subvocalize: Even if they’re not saying the words out loud, they subtly move the muscles of the throat and mouth involved in speech. The same things happen when we hear something—the unfamiliar name of a new product, for example. It’s a big part of how we commit it to memory. Chewing, however, monopolizes many of those muscles, disrupting the process (unlike eating a sugar cube, which just dissolves on its own). If the theory is right, cinema advertising falls victim to the evolutionary quirk by which we ended up using the same part of our body to consume food and to communicate."

And to learn?  I don't know.

I wonder if sucking through a straw produces the same immunity.

Or chewing gum?

Gum chewing already is associated with vacuousness.

But it also makes the chewer look calm, cool, collected.

I wonder if popcorn flavored jellybeans confer the same immunity. It's chewing, right?

Like this?

Yes! Like that!

Chewing gum, it's noted, impairs our ambulatory functions.

As in, can't chew gum and walk at the same time?