5.19 Tylenol dulls emotions. Will the same dose of Tylenol that stops the throbbing pain in your stubbed toe make you feel less joy at your sister’s wedding? A Columbus Dispatch article reported on a study, conducted by researchers at The Ohio State University, of the effects of Tylenol on emotions. Half of the volunteers in the study were randomly assigned to take acetaminophen and the other half a placebo. After allowing time for the drug to take effect, the research team showed the college students 40 images that ranged from extremely unpleasant to extremely pleasant. On the one end were things such as close-up shots of malnourished children and city blocks destroyed in a war zone. On the other were images of children playing with kittens in a park, a big pile of money, and the faces of a couple in bed together. The intensity of the response to the images was measured for each subject by asking them to respond to the question, “To what extent is this picture positive or negative” using an 11-point scale from –5 (extremely negative) to 5 (extremely positive).