Article

Effects of short-term food deprivation and chronic dietary restraint on the selective processing of appetitive-related cues

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Abstract

Selective processing of appetitive cues was investigated among food-deprived subjects and restrained eaters using the modified Stroop. Thirty-two university students (25 females, 7 males) were randomly assigned to a 6-hr food deprivation (FD) or a no food deprivation (NFD) condition. Subjects were also divided into three restrained eating groups-high (HR), moderate (MR), and low (LR)-according to Restraint Scale scores. Subjects color named sets of food, alcohol, and leisure control words. Stroop color-naming latencies were submitted to 2 x 3 (Food Deprivation Condition x Word Type) and 3 x 3 (Restrained Eating Group x Word Type) repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Food deprivation failed to produce longer latencies for food or alcohol words relative to control words. However, HR status was associated with significantly longer latencies for both food and alcohol, relative to control, words. Chronic dietary restraint but not short-term food deprivation was associated with selective processing of appetitive cues. The results have implications for understanding food preoccupation and risk for alcohol abuse in restrained eaters.

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... Using a computerized Stroop, they found an effect for both food-and body-words in all high restrained eaters, regardless of dieting status. Stewart & Samoluk (1997) examined Stroop interference for food,-alcohol-, and leisure-words in low, moderate, and high restrained eaters. High restrained eaters showed slowed color-naming of both alcohol-and food-words compared to control words. ...
... Stroop interference for food words for those high in dietary restraint (average restraint score of 15). Other researchers have reported using cutoff scores to determine restraint status, but did not provide specific information about average scores for high and low restraint (Mahamedi & Heatherton, 1993;Sackville et al., 1998;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). Nevertheless, in order to evaluate the reliability of these findings, the results should be replicated with a sample in which distinctions can be made between those with and without clinical symptoms, as the biases are more likely to be observed in a sample with clinical characteristics. ...
... However, Stewart and Samoluk (1997) found that a 6-hour food deprivation condition did not lead to biased processing of appetitive stimuli, even though food-deprived participants had higher levels of self-reported hunger than the non-food-deprived participants. Although these two studies are not consistent with each other, attentional biases to food words have been documented elsewhere. ...
... The primary domains assessed were: interference (i.e. cognitive control) assessed using Stroop and inhibition using go/no-go tasks (Doniger et al., 2006;Owen et al., 2012;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997); set shifting and cognitive flexibility was assessed using a task based on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST; Berg, 1948) (Piech, Hampshire, Owen, & Parkinson, 2009) (described below). Abstract reasoning used the eponymous section of the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) (Benton & Parker, 1998) and a problem solving task (similar to matrix reasoning, in which the participant must select a shape that completes increasingly complex figures) (Doniger et al., 2006). ...
... There were limited impacts of fasting on more traditional measures of cognitive control and interference. Three studies utilized a Stroop task and there was generally no impact of fasting on performance: two studies (Doniger et al., 2006;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) found trend-level declines in performance (in terms of accuracy and reaction time) when fasted (Ps ≤ .10, but > .05), ...
... The study designs and cognitive tests utilized in the studies were diverse, ranging from novel memory tests (e.g. trigrams) (Benton & Parker, 1998) to comprehensive computer-administered batteries (Doniger et al., 2006), several Stroop tasks (Stewart & Samoluk, 1997), or a combination of standardized psychomotor, attention, and memory tasks (Green et al., 1995(Green et al., , 1997. Some studies used a single task (Piech et al., 2009), while others had an extensive battery (Doniger et al., 2006). ...
... To date, no study has compared Stroop interference for forbidden foods versus nonforbidden foods among restrained eaters. Previous research investigating food preoccupation in restrained eaters using the modified Stroop task has either used entirely forbidden food words (e.g., Mahamedi & Heatherton, 1993, Study 2; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) or has combined both forbidden and nonforbidden foods into a single category (e.g., Channon et al., 1988). In the present study, restrained eaters and nonrestrained eaters were asked to color name forbidden food words, forbidden food control words, nonforbidden food words, and nonforbidden food control words. ...
... However, restrained eaters did take significantly longer than nonrestrained eaters to color name all food words relative to control words. This latter finding is consistent with previous work (e.g., Green & Rogers, 1993; Perpina et al., 1993; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) demonstrating that selective processing of food words is not limited to women with diagnosed eating disorders, but is also found in highly restrained individuals from the nonclinical population. It is possible that restrained eaters demonstrated increased interference for both forbidden and nonforbidden food words because they are equally preoccupied with both types of foods. ...
... It is possible that restrained eaters demonstrated increased interference for both forbidden and nonforbidden food words because they are equally preoccupied with both types of foods. If dietary restraint does in fact lead to nutritional deprivation (see Polivy & Herman, 1985), restrained eaters' increased Stroop interference for both forbidden and nonforbidden foods relative to nonrestrained eaters might represent distraction by the nutritional value of food cues, since both types of foods could provide some of the needed calories (see Stewart & Samoluk, 1995, 1997, for discussions of the contributions of caloric value in producing Stroop interference among restrained eaters). Riemann and McNally (1995) have recently suggested a "current concerns hypothesis" to explain Stroop interference effects. ...
Article
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The present study examined whether restrained eaters relative to nonrestrained eaters show greater preoccupation with forbidden foods than nonforbidden foods using a modified Stroop color-naming task. Fourteen restrained eaters and 14 nonrestrained eaters completed a computerized Stroop task, involving naming the ink color of forbidden food words, nonforbidden food words, and animal control words. Subjects also rated all food words on perceived forbiddenness (degree to which subjects were avoiding each food in efforts to control body weight). As hypothesized, Stroop interference for both types of food words was greater for restrained eaters than nonrestrained eaters. Contrary to hypothesis, restrained eaters did not demonstrate greater interference when color naming forbidden versus nonforbidden food words. However, restrained eaters rated only forbidden foods as more highly forbidden than nonrestrained eaters. The finding that dietary restraint was associated with the selective processing of both forbidden and nonforbidden food words may suggest that restrained eaters are more preoccupied with both types of foods than nonrestrained eaters. Alternatively, the Stroop may tap differences in the personal relevance of food cues between restrained eaters and nonrestrained eaters occurring early in the information processing chain, prior to restrained eaters' later classification of food words as bad versus good (forbidden vs. nonforbidden).
... Notably, restrained eaters revealed a dissociative pattern of negative explicit but positive implicit attitudes toward high calorie foods, but not toward low calorie foods: restrained eaters' explicit ratings of high calorie foods were more negative than those obtained from the unrestrained eaters, but an opposite pattern was exhibited for implicit evaluations (i.e., more positive among restrained vs. unrestrained). In a related study, Stewart and Samoluk (1997) compared the acute effects of hunger and the chronic effects of restrained eating on the processing of appetitive cues (food and alcohol words) relative to control words (leisure words) using a Stroop task. Dietary restraint was associated with attentional capture by appetitive cues such that highly restrained eaters had significantly longer color-naming latencies compared to moderate or low restraint eaters. ...
... Dietary restraint was associated with attentional capture by appetitive cues such that highly restrained eaters had significantly longer color-naming latencies compared to moderate or low restraint eaters. Thus, chronic dietary restraint seems to exert effects that are independent of hunger, possibly reflecting an underlying preoccupation with food (Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). Similarly, high trait craving scores (i.e., the tendency to experience more frequent and intense food cravings) should also have a positive relationship with gaze-related indices of attentional bias. ...
... Like previous results, this result is incongruent with that of Castellanos et al. (2009), who reported a significant positive relationship between the extent to which individuals restrict food intake and initial orienting to food pictures (high and low calorie combined), a result that has also been reported using other tasks (Hoefling & Strack, 2008;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). However, it is important to note that other research has also found that attentional biases to food words were not moderated by preoccupations with weight and body image (Placanica et al., 2002). ...
Article
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The primary goal of this study was to examine eye gaze behavior to different kinds of food images in individuals differing in BMI status. Eye-tracking methods were used to examine gaze and pupil responses while normal weight and overweight women freely viewed pairs of different food images: high calorie sweet foods, high calorie savory foods, and low calorie foods. Self-report measures of hunger, state and trait cravings, and restrained eating were also obtained. Results revealed orienting biases to low calorie foods and decreases in pupil diameter to high calorie sweet foods relative to low calorie foods in the overweight group. Groups did not differ in the average amount of time spent gazing at the different image types. Furthermore, increased state cravings were associated with larger pupil diameters to high calorie savory foods, especially in individuals with lower BMIs. In contrast, restrained eating scores were associated with a decreased orienting bias to high calorie sweet foods in the high BMI group. In conclusion, BMI status appears to influence gaze parameters that are less susceptible to cognitive control. Results suggest that overweight individuals, especially those who diet, have negative implicit attitudes toward high calorie foods, especially sweets.
... Previous research using the modified Stroop task has found that restrained eaters display a general attentional bias for food cues (Francis et al., 1997;Green & Rogers, 1993;Overduin et al., 1995;Perpina et al., 1993;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). The present study attempted to disentangle this attentional bias by examining whether speeded detection, slowed disengagement, or both of these attentional processes play a role. ...
... The difference in reaction times for the food in neutral and the neutral in neutral matrix types was greater for restrained than for unrestrained eaters. This result shows that restrained eaters display an enhanced orientation of attention toward food cues, supporting interpretations of a heightened vigilance for food cues found in previous studies using other methodologies such as the Stroop task (Francis et al., 1997;Green & Rogers, 1993;Overduin et al., 1995;Perpina et al., 1993;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). Most likely because of their preoccupation with food (Cogan & Ernsberger, 1999;Polivy & Herman, 2002), restrained eaters' attention is more readily captured by environmental food cues. ...
... This is not particularly surprising, as food is personally relevant to all human beings because of its survival function. Other studies using other tasks have similarly shown a less pronounced general attentional bias for food cues in unrestrained eaters (Green & Rogers, 1993;Perpina et al., 1993;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). ...
Article
The study aimed to investigate attentional bias for food cues among restrained eaters. In particular, the roles of speeded detection (enhanced orientation of attention toward food stimuli) and slowed disengagement (trouble disengaging attention from food stimuli) were examined. Participants were 78 female undergraduate students aged 18-25 years, classified as restrained (N=38) or unrestrained eaters (N=40). Attentional bias was assessed by a visual search task which required participants to locate the position of an odd-one-out target word in a matrix of 19 distractor words. Restrained eaters were disproportionately faster than unrestrained eaters to detect a food word within a neutral matrix compared to a neutral word within a neutral distractor matrix. Restrained eaters were also disproportionately faster, rather than slower, than unrestrained eaters to detect a neutral word within a food matrix compared to a neutral word within a neutral distractor matrix. Thus restrained eaters show a heightened vigilance for food cues, but no slower disengagement from such cues.
... Previous research using the modified Stroop task has found that restrained eaters display a general attentional bias for food cues (Francis et al., 1997; Green & Rogers, 1993; Overduin et al., 1995; Perpina et al., 1993; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). The present study attempted to disentangle this attentional bias by examining whether speeded detection, slowed disengagement, or both of these attentional processes play a role. ...
... The difference in reaction times for the food in neutral and the neutral in neutral matrix types was greater for restrained than for unrestrained eaters. This result shows that restrained eaters display an enhanced orientation of attention toward food cues, supporting interpretations of a heightened vigilance for food cues found in previous studies using other methodologies such as the Stroop task (Francis et al., 1997; Green & Rogers, 1993; Overduin et al., 1995; Perpina et al., 1993; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). Most likely because of their preoccupation with food (Cogan & Ernsberger, 1999; Polivy & Herman, 2002), restrained eaters' attention is more readily captured by environmental food cues. ...
... This is not particularly surprising, as food is personally relevant to all human beings because of its survival function. Other studies using other tasks have similarly shown a less pronounced general attentional bias for food cues in unrestrained eaters (Green & Rogers, 1993; Perpina et al., 1993; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). In contrast, we found no support for slower disengagement from food cues among restrained eaters. ...
Article
Theoretical models suggest that body checking is linked to biased cognitive processing. However, this link has not been investigated in any systematic way. The present study examined the influence of body checking on attentional bias for body-related cues by manipulating body checking behaviors in nonclinical participants. 66 women were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: body checking, body exposure, or control. A body visual search task was used to measure attentional bias. Participants in the body checking condition showed speeded detection of body-related information compared to participants in the exposure and control conditions. No evidence was found for increased distraction by body-related information. Furthermore, participants in the body checking condition reported more body dissatisfaction after the manipulation than participants in the body exposure and control conditions. These results are the first to experimentally establish the link between body checking and attentional bias toward body-related cues.
... Furthermore, a fundamental strength of the study was the subcategorisation of restrained eaters into 'inhibited restraint' and 'disinhibited restraint' according to scores on the restraint and disinhibition subscales of the TFEQ (Stunkard & Messick, 1985). In contrast, previous studies have primarily focussed on either restraint (e.g. Green & Rogers, 1993;Dejonckheere et al., 2003;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) or disinhibition (e.g. ...
... ). Numerous studies have demonstrated an association between dietary restriction and food preoccupations (e.g.Mann& Ward, 2001;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) whereby a vicious circle can arise in which a focus on food and weight increases the risk of eating problems, and the eating problems in turn maintain and increase preoccupations with food(Cooper & Todd, 1997; Jones-Chesters, Monsell, & Cooper, 1998). Furthermore, cravings triggered by dietary restriction are an important precursor to overeating and binge eating(Polivy, Coleman, & Herman, 2005) and can also lead to impaired cognitive performance on a range of memory and RT tasks (e.g.Green & Rogers, 1993; Kemps & Tiggemann, 2005).Recent studies suggest that some individuals with high dietary restraint are more prone to experience difficulties with food preoccupations and overeating than others(Ogden, 2003;van Strien, 1999).Furthermore, Westenhoefer (1991) suggests that restrained eaters can be subcategorised into those who are successful at their attempts at restraint and have a low tendency towards disinhibition (inhibited restrainers) and those who are relatively unsuccessful at restraint and have a high tendency towards disinhibition (disinhibited restrainers). ...
Thesis
p>The thesis commences with a review of thought suppression research and focuses on the effects of suppressing personally relevant material. Limitations of the research are discussed, in addition to the current theoretical understandings of thought suppression phenomenon. Following this, the review focuses on the clinical applications of thought suppression research in relation to dietary restraint. However, results have been inconsistent and further studies are required to differentiate between the effects of dietary restraint and disinhibition and investigate individual differences in thought suppression attempts. In view of this, the empirical paper investigated the effects of thought suppression, dietary restraint and disinhibition on automatic cognitive processes, in addition to individual differences in thought control techniques. Participants classified as low restraint, inhibited restraint and disinhibited restraint were instructed to either suppress or not suppress their thoughts prior to completing a modified Stroop task. It was found that, contrary to predictions, thought suppression decreased reaction time on the Stroop task. Furthermore, disinhibited restrainers were more likely to engage in thought suppression attempts, experienced higher levels of anxiety and were less likely to use adaptive thought control techniques compared to low restrainers and inhibited restrainers. Results are considered in relation to previous research, and methodological limitations as well as clinical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.</p
... building words and clothing words, respectively) to control for the categorical nature of the experimental primes and targets (c.f. Francis, Stewart, & Hounsell, 1997;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). The positive affect primes were author compiled from words used in the positive situation subscales of the 100-item Inventory of Drinking Situations (IDS; Annis et al., 1987) and from the positive affect subscale of the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist -Revised (MAACL-R; Zuckerman & Lubin, 1985). ...
... Over the last decade, addictions researchers have begun to study the effects of experimentally-induced states on information processing mechanisms relevant to substance abuse and dependence (e.g. Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). For example, Gross, Jarvik, and Rosenblatt (1993) showed that experimental induction of a nicotine withdrawal state among smokers, through temporary abstinence, led to selective processing of smoking words on the Stroop. ...
Article
Full-text available
This study investigated whether Coping Motivated and Enhancement Motivated drinkers differ in their degree of semantic activation of alcohol concepts on a primed Stroop colour-naming task following exposure to negative and positive affect primes, respectively. Participants were 48 undergraduates (not necessarily problem drinkers) who had elevated scores on the Coping Motivated or Enhancement Motivated subscale of the Drinking Motives Questionnaire - Revised. The Stroop task involved negative, positive and neutral primes that preceded alcohol and no-alcohol target words. As hypothesized, Coping Motivated drinkers showed semantic activation of alcohol concepts following exposure to negative but not neutral primes. Also as hypothesized, Enhancement Motivated drinkers showed semantic activation of alcohol concepts following exposure to positive but not negative primes. Unexpectedly, semantic activation of alcohol concepts was also observed among Coping Motivated drinkers following positive primes and among Enhancement Motivated drinkers following neutral primes. Theoretical implications are discussed, as are implications for improving cognitive behavioral interventions for problem drinkers.
... Finally, a number of studies suggest that restrained eaters are more sensitive to alcohol-associated cues compared to unrestrained eaters. Male and female students with high restraint (RS) had longer latencies to food and alcohol cues in a Stroop test than to control cues [37]. This latency was not present in those with average and low restraint scores and was unaffected by mild food deprivation [37]. ...
... Male and female students with high restraint (RS) had longer latencies to food and alcohol cues in a Stroop test than to control cues [37]. This latency was not present in those with average and low restraint scores and was unaffected by mild food deprivation [37]. Similarly, women scoring high on restraint (DEBQ) and disinhibition exhibited attentional bias to alcohol-related words in a visual dot-probe task but only disinhibition predicted binge drinking behaviour [38]. ...
Article
Full-text available
Alcoholic beverages have long been associated with feasts, celebration and marking special events. Today, it is commonplace to consume alcoholic beverages before, with and/or after a meal. Alcohol provides additional pleasure to the meal and enhances appetite. However, consuming an al-coholic beverage with or before a meal is associated with poor short-term energy compensation; energy from alcohol is addi-tive to total energy intake with the added property of stimu-lating further eating. Limiting alcohol intake is an obvious means to reduce total energy intake for those who wish to lose weight. However, dieters and restrained eaters drink more and report greater binge drinking than unrestrained eaters despite employing cognitive strategies to reduce their intake. In-creased intake may be attributable to greater attentional bias to alcohol related cues as well as to food cues, since these are more salient to those limiting intake. Alcohol increases energy intake in dieters, in part due to abandonment of restraint (disinhibition) and consumption of forbidden items including alcohol exacerbates attempts to resist temptation. Paradoxical-ly, links between binge drinking or increased drinking fre-quency to overweight and obesity may be mediated by dietary restraint. Efforts to limit food and alcohol intake for weight control appear to be unsuccessful and have the net effect of promoting overconsumption. The potential role of restrained eating in the association between alcohol, appetite and obesity has been overlooked by much of the current research and further investigation of this is therefore warranted.
... building words and clothing words, respectively) to control for the categorical nature of the experimental primes and targets (c.f. Francis, Stewart, & Hounsell, 1997; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). The positive affect primes were author compiled from words used in the positive situation subscales of the 100-item Inventory of Drinking Situations (IDS; Annis et al., 1987) and from the positive affect subscale of the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist – Revised (MAACL-R; Zuckerman & Lubin, 1985). ...
... There are several methodologies alternative to cognitive priming tasks that might prove useful to future research in this area. Over the last decade, addictions researchers have begun to study the effects of experimentally-induced states on information processing mechanisms relevant to substance abuse and dependence (e.g. Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). For example, Gross, Jarvik, and Rosenblatt (1993) showed that experimental induction of a nicotine withdrawal state among smokers, through temporary abstinence, led to selective processing of smoking words on the Stroop. ...
Data
This study investigated whether Coping Motivated and Enhancement Motivated drinkers differ in their degree of semantic activation of alcohol concepts on a primed Stroop colour-naming task following exposure to negative and positive affect primes, respectively. Participants were 48 undergraduates (not necessarily problem drinkers) who had elevated scores on the Coping Motivated or Enhancement Motivated subscale of the Drinking Motives Questionnaire - Revised. The Stroop task involved negative, positive and neutral primes that preceded alcohol and no-alcohol target words. As hypothesized, Coping Motivated drinkers showed semantic activation of alcohol concepts following exposure to negative but not neutral primes. Also as hypothesized, Enhancement Motivated drinkers showed semantic activation of alcohol concepts following exposure to positive but not negative primes. Unexpectedly, semantic activation of alcohol concepts was also observed among Coping Motivated drinkers following positive primes and among Enhancement Motivated drinkers following neutral primes. Theoretical implications are discussed, as are implications for improving cognitive behavioral interventions for problem drinkers.
... Support for this hypothesis has been somewhat mixed with restrained eaters. For example, Stewart and Samoluk (1997) found that restrained eaters demonstrate an attentional bias for appetitive food words relative to control words in the modified Stroop task unlike unrestrained participants who failed to exhibit a bias. ...
... To our knowledge, this is the first experimental report that demonstrates differential levels of attentional bias in restrained and unrestrained eaters using the flanker task. These findings replicate and extend previous reports that have used other tasks such as the Stroop task (e.g., Stewart & Samoluk, 1997), and help explain apparent inconsistencies in this work that may have occurred because of the variety of methodologies used and differences in stimuli across studies. The current findings suggest that chronic dietary restraint is associated with an increased tendency to direct attention away from low calorie food choices specifically, and towards unhealthful food-related cues. ...
Article
The goal of the present study was to determine whether female restrained and unrestrained eaters demonstrated differential levels of attentional bias to high calorie foods when they were presented as distractors in a flanker task. This task consisted of four blocks of 68 trials in which three food pictures were briefly presented simultaneously on a computer screen. On each trial a high or low calorie target food was presented in the center of a pair of high or low calorie food flanker pictures and participants' reaction times to answer a basic question about whether they would consume the target food for breakfast were recorded. In Experiment 1, in which all participants were fed a snack prior to engaging in the flanker task, there was no evidence that restrained (n=29) or unrestrained (n=37) eaters had an attentional bias. However, in Experiment 2, when participants completed the flanker task while hungry, restrained eaters (n=27) experienced response conflict only when low calorie targets were flanked by high calorie distractors, whereas unrestrained eaters (n=46) were distracted by high calorie flankers regardless of the caloric content of the target cue. The results from this implicit task indicate that flankers interfere with hungry participants' responses to varying degrees depending on their cognitive restraint. Whether attentional bias to food cues subsequently affects food choices and eating behavior is a topic for further investigation.
... Of 4 studies of the effect of fasting on inhibition, 3 used the Stroop test and found no effect on inhibition. 61,67, 68 Zajac et al 4 used the Color Multi-Source Interference Test, a cognitive interference measure, and similarly found no differences after fasting. ...
Article
Full-text available
Research into the effects of calorie restriction continues to intrigue those interested in whether it may allow humans to live longer and healthier lives. Animal studies of continuous calorie restriction (CCR) and fasting have demonstrated substantial advantages to health and longevity. However, concerns remain about the impact of restricting calorie intake on human health and cognition. Given the emerging evidence of cognitive impairments in eating disorders, studies investigating restricted calorie intake in healthy humans (in an ethical way) may also have implications for understanding restrictive eating disorders. In this review, the published literature on the impact of CCR and fasting on cognitive function in healthy human participants is synthesized. Of the 33 studies of CCR and fasting in humans identified, 23 demonstrated significant changes in cognition. Despite variation across the cognitive domains, results suggest CCR benefits inhibition, processing speed, and working memory, but may lead to impairments in cognitive flexibility. The results of fasting studies suggest fasting is associated with impairments in cognitive flexibility and psychomotor abilities. Overall, the results of these studies suggest the degree (ie, the severity) of calorie restriction is what most likely predicts cognitive improvements as opposed to impairments. For individuals engaging in sustained restriction, this may have serious, irreversible consequences. However, there are mixed findings regarding the impact of CCR and fasting on this aspect of human functioning, suggesting further research is required to understand the costs and benefits of different types of calorie restriction.
... Some researchers suggests that individual who were fasting had poorer accuracy in stroop task for assessing executive [8,10] functions . Another study done using stroop task revealed [11] that fasting has decreased speed of color naming . One study that aimed to profile the effect of fasting during the Ramadan month on cognitive function in a group of healthy Muslim athletes revealed better responses for the tasks requiring sustained rapid responses in the morning, and the responses were found to decline in the late afternoon whereas performance in non-speed dependent accuracy [12] measures was more flexible . ...
Article
Full-text available
Background and objective: Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability of the brain to switch from thinking about one concept to another simultaneously. The study was taken up to evaluate the effect of fasting on Cognitive Functioning In Healthy Young Adults. Methodology: A total of 20 healthy young adults participated in the study. Paper Stroop Color Test was employed to assess inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Participants were given 4 cards (word card color card and color-word card) and were instructed to read the card as told by the clinician. The total duration taken to complete each task and incorrect responses for each task was noted. The same experiment was done in fasting and non-fasting condition for each participant. Results: The results revealed no statistical significance between the 3 tasks between 2 conditions. Though our present study did not reveal statistical significance difference between 3 tasks and 2 conditions, it was found that the performance was better during the second condition i.e. after fasting condition in comparison to first condition i.e during fasting condition. Conclusion: The study justifies these findings to be reflected due to fluid deprivation, change in life style and sleep wake up cycles with in turn effects cognitive functioning. The study also highlights on the effectiveness of stroop task in identifying the changes in cognitive function due to fasting.
... The attentional effects of learned implicit attitudes have been investigated in several studies on restrained eating behaviors -according to Stewart and Samoluk (1997), chronic dietary restraint significantly affects latencies in a Stroop task, while acute food deprivation (an induced hunger state) ...
Chapter
This chapter provides a general overview of eye-tracking techniques and their applications in consumer research with a focus on the food area. Firstly, the scientific approaches leading to the development of eye-trackers are described, followed by a review of the principles and technical solutions of measuring gazing behavior. After a description of the factors influencing gaze behavior and a discussion of the relation between gaze, choice and decision making we present applications of eye-tracking in the fields of packaging, label and menu design, in-store consumer behavior, emotional responses and eating disorders. Finally, we discuss a case study involving the use of eye-tracking for studying consumer food choice in more detail.
... Higher scores indicate higher levels of hunger. Although the Grand hunger scale has not undergone any formal validation, the items have been shown to distinguish between fasting and non-fasting participants (Channon & Hayward, 1990;Placanica, Faunce, & Job, 2002;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) and it has been employed in a number of food-related studies (e.g., Brignell, Griffiths, Bradley, & Mogg, 2009;Tapper et al., 2008). ...
Article
Although the nutrient requirements and dietary intake of athletes have been thoroughly investigated, little is known about the influences on their food choice, particularly prior to and during competition. This study sought to investigate factors that influence food selection of athletes at two similar international competition events: the Melbourne 2006 and Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games. A secondary aim was to explore differences in these factors between at each event given the culturally diverse locations. A survey developed for this study was distributed to athletes in the village dining hall at both events. Athletes scored a selection of factors influencing food choice on a scale of 1 (not important) to 5 (very important). A total of 769 individuals completed the questionnaire in total, with 351 (46%) from Delhi and 418 (54%) from Melbourne. Overall, athletes rated nutrient composition (M = 4.22), stage of competition (M = 4.09), time of day (M = 4.02) and familiarity of the food (M = 4.07) higher than sensory properties (smell M = 3.88; visual appearance M = 3.22) when making a food selection. Visual appearance (p = 0.01), stage of competition (p < 0.001) and time of day (p = 0.01) had greater influence in Delhi than Melbourne. Overall, a significantly higher proportion of female athletes rated smell (p < 0.001) and familiar food (p < 0.001) as important compared to males. The stage of competition and nutrition composition was rated as very important by the greatest proportion of athletes from weight category sports (61.9%) and endurance sports (57.9%) respectively. The influence of the coach and team mates was less of an influence than other factors, but more so for athletes from Non-Western regions. Further investigation of the various determinants and motives for food section of athletes from a range of sports and cultures is warranted.
... The lack of modulating effects induced by the level of restrain of the diet is partially different and it is apparently at odd with previous research. For instance, some authors reported that restrained eaters compared to unrestrained eaters display greater Stroop interference on food words (Francis, Stewart, & Hounsell, 1997;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) and increased visual attention to food cues (Papies et al., 2008a). Notably, research on the role of eating restraint in directing selective attention toward food has led to equivocal results with several studies reporting no evidence of such attentional bias in dietary restrain eaters (for a review, see e.g., Dobson & Dozois, 2004; see also Watson & Garvey, 2013). ...
... One explanation for this effect is that restrained eaters find all food stimuli distracting, not just that related to restricted foods, and that this may reflect the fact that they are in a state of extreme hunger. However, interference in colour-naming latencies for food words has only been observed after 24 hours or more of food restriction (Channon & Hayward, 1990;Green, Elliman, & Rogers, 1996;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997), and although fasting is not uncommon in restrained eaters, only a minority report eating nothing for periods of this duration (Phelps, Andrea, & Rizzo, 1994). An alternative possibility is that while under certain circumstances restraint-related interfering cognitions may reflect a preoccupation with the desire to eat certain foods, under others, the nature of the cognitions may reflect the threat associated with the stimuli. ...
... Subjects may be classified as showing a high or low level of preoccupation by the food they intake, their weight or body shape (dietary restrained or unrestrained subjects, respectively). Those subjects in a non-clinical population that score high in dietary restraint showed a more consistent increase in latency to nominate the color of food-related words than the unrestrained population [7,8]. However, others reported inconsistent results [9][10][11], but it had been suggested that inconsistencies may be related to the definition of the restrained patient population [12], may be related to the type of diet used [13] or may depend on some prior events to the test, since one study [14] found Stroop interference in nonrestrained eaters only if subjects consumed an appetizer before the task. ...
... The findings for nonclinical samples are mixed with some studies (e.g., Perpina et al., 1993, Stewart & Samoluk, 1997, but not all (e.g., Sackville et al., 1998), demonstrating slowed colour-naming of food and body words in restrained eaters and dieters. In one study, individuals with high drive for thinness (DFT) and restrained eaters (some of whom were eating-disordered) were slower to colour-name body words than neutral words compared to those with low DFT and unrestrained eaters (Perpina et al., 1993). ...
... However, when non-fasting only the participants high in non-clinical concerns demonstrated attentional bias toward words related to low calorie foods which suggests that attentional bias toward food words can not simply be explained as a result of hunger. Furthermore, in a study by Stewart and Samoluk (1997) dieting due to concerns about body appearance was found to be related to Stroop interference for high calorie food-related words, whereas food deprivation per se did not produce Stroop interference for such food words. ...
... Food-related processing biases have been frequently observed in restrained eaters, emotional eaters, and obese individuals (e.g., Long, Hinton, & Gillespie, 1994;Overduin, Jansen, & Louwerse, 2006;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997;Tapper, Pothos, Fadardi, & Ziori, 2008). In a recent crosscultural study, Tapper et al. (2008) showed that high studies are required to explore the robustness of this new theoretical model. ...
... Restrained eaters over-consume food served in smaller packaging (Scott, Nowlis, Mandel, & Morales, 2008), and are more likely to eat more when faced with stressful situations (Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991). Restrained eaters tend to have a greater propensity towards disinhibited eating after an initial violation of their strict dietary restrictions (Ruderman, Belzer, & Halperin, 1985;Ward & Mann, 2000) and they exhibit attentional biases toward food and body-shape-related words (Francis, Stewart, & Hounsell, 1997;Green & Rogers, 1993;Overduin, Jansen, & Louwerse, 1995;Sackville, Schotte, Touyz, Griffiths, & Beumont, 1998;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). Fat content is the most important determinant of healthfulness for restrained eaters while freshness is the top most concern for unrestrained eaters (Oakes & Slotterback, 2002;Rideout et al., 2004). ...
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Food packaging in general and packaging incorporating health messages in particular have been active areas of inquiry, receiving attention from policymakers and food manufacturers alike. This study explores the effects of package seals and claims on perceived product healthfulness as a function of dietary restraint status. A laboratory experiment using realistic three-dimensional packaging shows that for restrained eaters (i.e., those who try to restrict their food intake), nutrition claims on "healthy" products and nutrition seals on "unhealthy" products are effective at enhancing perceptions of product healthfulness. Unrestrained eaters, in contrast, are largely unaffected by nutrition seals and claims. These results provide insights into restrained eaters' purchase motivations, as well as guidance for policymakers seeking to regulate the use of seals and claims.
... Prior studies have shown that attitude ambivalence towards food narrows individuals' attention to the visual cues of hedonic foods (e.g. Hollitt, Kemps, Tiggemann, Smeets, & Mills, 2010;Overduin, Jansen, & Louwerse, 1995;Papies, Stroebe, & Aarts, 2008;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). Another line of research has suggested that narrowed attention influences perceptions of size and distance by generating more vivid representations and higher sensitivity to contrasts and spatial resolution (Alter & Balcetis, 2011;Carrasco, 2011;Dunning & Balcetis, 2013;Wardak, Deneve, & Ben Hamed, 2011). ...
Article
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A rapid increase in the size of food portions has underlined the importance of understanding consumers’ ability to accurately perceive portion sizes. Drawing on research on motivated perception, we posit that attitude ambivalence (simultaneously desiring a food and perceiving it as unhealthy) enhances visual sensitivity to increasing portion sizes. We manipulate or measure attitude ambivalence in three experimental studies conducted among children and adults and find that visual sensitivity is driven not simply by desire but by the coexistence of desire and perceived unhealthiness of the food (e.g., for hedonic food and among restrained eaters). Our findings suggest that framing foods as vices improves the estimation of portion sizes among health-conscious people.
... Other findings nevertheless suggest that restrained eaters are more sensitive and reactive to food cues including a greater appetitive urge to eat (Lowe, 1982;Rogers et al., 1989;Fedoroff et al., 1997;Overduin et al., 1997), which may increase in response to stress (Mitchell et al., 1996). In one study, being a restrained eater was more important in explaining appetite outcomes than short-term food deprivation (Stewart et al., 1997). Restrained eaters also demonstrate a higher physiological arousal level in blood pressure, electrodermal activity, and heart rate during food exposure trials. ...
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This article critically reviews the behavioral and biological associations of dietary restraint. Behaviorally, dietary restraint manifests itself in the form of less variety in the diet and reduced energy intake. As practiced by some, dietary restraint may create biological and psychological feelings of deprivation that lead to greater reactivity to food cues, cravings, counterregulation, disinhibition, periodic overeating, and weight gain. Biologically, it is often associated with unhealthy changes in body composition, hormonal changes, reduced bone density, menstrual disturbances, and lower resting energy expenditure. Caution is indicated in the promotion of dietary restraint as a general principle for managing weight.
... Entretanto, se um aspecto definidor do indivíduo impulsivo é a falha em exercer inibições de respostas de forma apropriada, ele teria dificuldades para conter o impulso para alimentar-se e teria um ECA. 51 Assim, a capacidade de controlar impulsos teria efeito moderador sobre o controle da ingestão 25 alimentar. Kaye e cols. ...
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BACKGROUND: The pathophysiology of eating disorders is still unknown, with many factors possibly involved. The existence of a central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction is being investigated with particular interest. One of the most employed strategies to reach this goal is the evaluation of cognitive functioning of patients with eating disorders with neuropsychological tests. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the current knowledge about the neuropsychology of ED. METHODS: We performed a review of several data bases (including MedLINE, PsychoINFO, LILACS and Cochrane Data Bank), using terms related to main theme of interest. The review comprised articles published up to January, 2004. RESULTS: Anorexia Nervosa (AN) was t­ ­ he most studied ED from the neuropsychological point-of-view, with studies tending to elicit attentive, visuo-spatial, and visuo-constructive deficits among such patients. On the other side, patients with Bulimia Nervosa (BN) exhibited déficits in the selective aspects of attention and in executive functions. As yet, there is no study covering the neuropsychological aspects of binge-eating disorder. After successful treatment, individuals show improvement of some cognitive deficits, while other seem to persist. CONCLUSIONS: The ED are possibly associated with a certain degree of neuropsychological dysfunction, even though there is no consesus with regard to which function is particularly impaired. The fact that some cognitive dysfunction tend to disappear after treatment argues in favor of the hypothesis that these are functional deficits. Other deficits, however, tend to persist, suggesting that they may precede the development of eating disorders or even contribute to their development or to a worse prognosis. The study of the neuropsychological aspects of ED may help tailoring more selective therapeutic approaches to patients suffering from these disorders.
... Lavik, Clausen, & Pedersen, 1991;Stewart, Angelopoulos, Baker, & Boland, 2000a;Xinaris & Boland, 1990). Stewart and Samoluk (1997) found that, relative to women low in restraint, restrained eating women were more easily attracted not only to food cues, but also to alcohol cues. ...
Article
Questionnaires assessing heavy drinking and binge eating were administered to 58 women with alcohol problems. A sub-sample of the binge-eaters then participated in qualitative interviews about their perceptions of the connections between their two problems. Seventy-one percent self-identified as binge-eaters with most reporting ‘severe’ binge eating. Binge-eaters were younger, more frequent drinkers and drank more often for emotional relief than non-binge-eaters. Binge eating and heavy drinking appeared to serve similar functions in a given client (i.e. emotional relief or reward functions). We discuss implications of the findings for the development of better treatments for women struggling with both health issues.
... Entretanto, se um aspecto definidor do indivíduo impulsivo é a falha em exercer inibições de respostas de forma apropriada, ele teria dificuldades para conter o impulso para alimentar-se e teria um ECA. 51 Assim, a capacidade de controlar impulsos teria efeito moderador sobre o controle da ingestão 25 alimentar. Kaye e cols. ...
Article
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Background: The pathophysiology of eating disorders is still unknown, with many factors possibly involved. The existence of a central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction is being investigated with particular interest. One of the most employed strategies to reach this goal is the evaluation of cognitive functioning of patients with eating disorders with neuropsychological tests. Objective: To evaluate the current knowledge about the neuropsychology of ED. Methods: We performed a review of several data bases (including MedLINE, PsychoINFO, LILACS and Cochrane Data Bank), using terms related to main theme of interest. The review comprised articles published up to January, 2004. Results: Anorexia Nervosa (AN) was the most studied ED from the neuropsychological point-of-view, with studies tending to elicit attentive, visuo-spatial, and visuo-constructive deficits among such patients. On the other side, patients with Bulimia Nervosa (BN) exhibited déficits in the selective aspects of attention and in executive functions. As yet, there is no study covering the neuropsychological aspects of binge-eating disorder. After successful treat- ment, individuals show improvement of some cognitive deficits, while other seem to persist. Conclusions: The ED are possibly associated with a certain degree of neuropsychological dysfunction, even though there is no consesus with regard to which function is particularly impaired. The fact that some cognitive dysfunction tend to disappear after treatment argues in favor of the hypothesis that these are functional deficits. Other deficits, however, tend to persist, suggesting that they may precede the development of eating disorders or even contribute to their development or to a worse prognosis. The study of the neuropsychological aspects of ED may help tailoring more selective therapeu- tic approaches to patients suffering from these disorders.
... Vocal response errors occurred on relatively few (4%) of the color-naming trials (cf.,Stewart et al., 1998). Although some researchers (e.g.,Martin, Williams, & Clark, 1991;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) use raw color-naming latencies as dependent variables in studies using the emotional Stroop, others have argued that this practice may be problematic because raw latency scores fail to control for intersubject variability in overall colornaming speed within subject groups, artificially adding to the overall error variance (Elting & Hope, 1995). Thus, many researchers use the ''interference index'' as the dependent variable in Stroop studies (e.g.,Francis, Stewart, & Hounsell, 1997;McNally et al., 1990), because this measure estimates the extra processing time associated with the content of the experimental words above that associated with the control (neutral) words, after controlling for intersubject differences in colournaming speed (Elting & Hope, 1995). ...
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The present study examined the effects of naturalistic benzodiazepine (BZ) use on selective attention to threat cues in 50 patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders, according to DSM-IV (APA, 1994) criteria. Patients provided information on their BZ use histories, demographics, and severity of anxiety symptomatology, and completed a computerized Stroop task involving color naming of social threat, physical threat, and matched no-threat control words. Patients were selected to fill two age-, gender-, and diagnosis-matched groups based on self-reported BZ use histories: 25 current BZ users versus 25 medication nonusing controls. Planned comparisons were conducted to determine whether BZ use groups differed in degree of selective attention to either the physical and/or social threat stimuli, or overall. Even with BZ use group differences in anxiety severity covaried out, the BZ users demonstrated significantly greater selective attention to threat than the medication nonusers, particularly in the case of physical threat stimuli. These findings are consistent with Westra and Stewart's (1998) suggestion that BZ use may increase preferential attention to physical threat cues, since BZs are often taken on an as needed (prn) basis. This prn enhancement interpretation was further supported through the finding of a significant positive correlation between frequency of prn use of BZs and degree of physical threat-related interference on the Stroop among the BZ users group. Theoretical explanations and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
... Although the present study did find evidence for a relative memory bias favoring the recall of forbidden food words over animal control words only among high-restraint women, the results do not distinguish whether this effect represents a bias at the encoding and/or retrieval stage of memory processing. Participants in future studies could receive their initial exposure to the forbidden food and animal control words in a modified Stroop task, which has commonly been used to assess depth of encoding in this literature (e.g., Francis et al., 1997; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997). Thus, both encoding of and memory for forbidden food and control stimuli could be quantified and compared in the same participants. ...
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Research on the cognitive patterns characteristic of women high in dietary restraint indicates an attentional bias favoring the early-stage selective processing of forbidden food words. The current study was conducted to determine whether highly restrained women also show a later stage memory bias for forbidden food words. Sixty-seven university females encoded a list of 30 words (15 forbidden food words, 15 animal control words) presented in an incidental learning task. Participants were then asked to freely recall as many words as they could remember. Scores on the Restraint Scale were used to classify participants as either high (N = 29) or low (N = 38) in dietary restraint. Contrary to prediction, high-restraint women did not remember more forbidden food words than low-restraint women. High-restraint women did, however, remember fewer animal control words than low-restraint women, suggesting a deficit in memory for material outside of the food-schema domain in restrained eaters relative to nonrestrained eaters. Consistent with hypothesis, only women in the high-restraint group remembered more forbidden food than animal control words, indicating a relative memory bias for forbidden food words only among restrained eaters. The results thus provide only partial support for Bemis-Vitousek and Hollon's theory that restrained eaters have cognitive structures (schema) which may support more elaborative encoding and/or greater memory accessibility of personally relevant (i.e., forbidden food) information and which may underlie self-reported food preoccupation among clinical and nonclinical restrained eaters.
... Interference, or attentional bias, is calculated as participants' mean reaction time to the alcohol stimuli minus their mean reaction time to the neutral stimuli. The alcohol-Stroop test has been used to assess AAB in both heavy social drinkers (e.g., Cox et al., 1999Cox et al., , 2007Stewart and Samoluk, 1997) and alcohol abusers (e.g., Bauer and Cox, 1998;Cox et al., 2000Cox et al., , 2002Johnsen et al., 1994;Ryan, 2002;Stetter et al., 1995Stetter et al., , 1994Stormark et al., 2000). The degree of AAB is proportional to the amount of alcohol that participants habitually consume (e.g., abusers > heavy drinkers > social drinkers; Cox et al., 2006;. ...
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The aims of the research were to (a) compare the alcohol attentional bias (AAB) of social, hazardous, and harmful drinkers and (b) assess the effects of alcohol attention-control training on the AAB and alcohol consumption of hazardous and harmful drinkers. Participants were social drinkers (N = 40), hazardous drinkers (N = 89), and harmful drinkers (N = 92). Paper-and-pencil measures were used to collect information about participants’ socio-demographic characteristics, health status, motivational structure, drinking-related locus of control and situational self-confidence, readiness to change, affect, and alcohol consumption. Computerized classic, alcohol- and concerns-Stroop tests were administered. All participants were tested individually, with the order of tests counterbalanced across participants. After the baseline assessment, the hazardous and harmful drinkers were trained with the Alcohol Attention-Control Training Program (AACTP) for two and four sessions, respectively. Both samples completed a post-training assessment, and the harmful drinkers also completed 3-month follow-up. Results indicated that (a) the harmful drinkers had larger AAB than the hazardous and the social drinkers; (b) the attentional training reduced the hazardous and harmful drinkers’ AAB; and (c) the harmful drinkers showed post-training reductions in alcohol consumption and improvements on the other drinking-related indices. The harmful drinkers’ improvements were maintained at the 3-month follow-up.
... Previous research on the role of eating restraint in directing selective attention towards food has led to equivocal results. While some studies found restrained eaters displaying greater Stroop interference on food words than unrestrained eaters (Francis, Stewart, & Hounsell, 1997;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997), other studies found no evidence of selective attention for food stimuli in dietary restraint (Boon, Vogelzang, & Jansen, 2000; for a review, see Dobson & Dozois, 2004;Sackville, Schotte, Touyz, Griffiths, & Beumont, 1998). There are two possible reasons for these conflicting results, namely (1) the influence of restrained eaters' dieting concern on attentional processes, and (2) the type of measures traditionally used to examine these processes. ...
Article
The aim of the present studies was to examine the impact of food cues on restrained eaters’ attention for food. Previous research has shown that restrained eaters spontaneously activate hedonic thoughts in response to palatable food cues, and that such food cues also lead them to inhibit their dieting goal. We argue that as a consequence, restrained eaters’ selective attention will automatically be drawn towards hedonically relevant food items. Consistent with our expectations, the results of two studies revealed that restrained eaters, but not unrestrained eaters, displayed an attentional bias for hedonically rated food items when they had been pre-exposed to food cues. However, this attentional bias did not occur when restrained eaters were primed with the concept of dieting, thereby rendering the regulation of eating behavior more successful. These findings are discussed in the context of implicit processes in self-regulation.
... Second, anecdotal reports indicate that dieting requires considerable attention and causes an obsessive focus on food and eating, often with the dichotomization of food into good and bad, implicating in particular the dysfunctional attitude of dichotomous thinking. Experimentally it has been demonstrated that restrained eaters have slower responses to food words on a Stroop test after a high-calorie preload (Ogden & Greville, 1993) and in general (Stewart & Samoluk, 1997), indicating that cognitive resources are being diverted to process subjectively relevant information. Hickford, Ward, and Bulik (1997) also report differences in the nature of the cognitions. ...
Article
This study aimed to investigate the relationship between dieting and global cognitive style in a non-clinical sample. Questionnaires were administered to 218 Australian undergraduate students. Dieting was operationalized in two ways: self-reported current dieting behaviour; and scores on dietary restraint. It was found that current, but not past, dieters had more dysfunctional cognitive attitudes, confirming the necessity of distinguishing between current and past dieting behaviour. The Concern for Dieting subscale of dietary restraint was also related to a dysfunctional cognitive style, even after level of depressed mood was statistically controlled. In particular, the dysfunctional attitude of Dichotomous Thinking was implicated. Taken together, the findings imply that dieters do not have an enduring maladaptive cognitive style, but rather that current dieting concerns and behaviour are associated with poorer cognitive functioning.
... This finding also seems conceptually compatible with results of a recent eyetracking study which indicated that higher levels of restrained eating were associated with reduced attentional bias in visual orienting to high-calorie sweet foods in overweight individuals, which the authors suggested may have been due to such foods having reduced reward value for overweight restrained eaters (Graham et al. 2011). However, some other studies using the modified Stroop task have shown that restrained eaters may show greater attentional bias to food cues, although these studies were performed in healthy-weight subjects (Green & Rogers, 1993 ; Overduin et al. 1995 ; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) or patients with anorexia and bulimia with high drive for thinness (Perpiñ a ´ et al. 1993) and hence the latter findings cannot be directly compared to our findings in a overweight and obese population. If restrained eating is associated with a controlled strategy aimed at minimizing processing of food cues, it could be argued that this should be more evident in the longer than shorter stimulus exposure condition of the visual probe task (which would be manifest in an interaction effect of restraintrstimulus exposure on attentional bias). ...
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The mesolimbic dopamine system plays a critical role in the reinforcing effects of rewards. Evidence from pre-clinical studies suggests that D₃ receptor antagonists may attenuate the motivational impact of rewarding cues. In this study we examined the acute effects of the D₃ receptor antagonist GSK598809 on attentional bias to rewarding food cues in overweight to obese individuals (n=26, BMI mean=32.7±3.7, range 27-40 kg/m²) who reported binge and emotional eating. We also determined whether individual differences in restrained eating style modulated the effects of GSK598809 on attentional bias. The study utilized a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over design with each participant tested following acute administration of placebo and GSK598809 (175 mg). Attentional bias was assessed by the visual probe task and modified Stroop task using food-related words. Overall GSK598809 had no effects on attentional bias in either the visual probe or food Stroop tasks. However, the effect of GSK598809 on both visual probe and food Stroop attentional bias scores was inversely correlated with a measure of eating restraint allowing the identification of two subpopulations, low- and high-restrained eaters. Low-restrained eaters had a significant attentional bias towards food cues in both tasks under placebo, and this was attenuated by GSK598809. In contrast, high-restrained eaters showed no attentional bias to food cues following either placebo or GSK598809. These findings suggest that excessive attentional bias to food cues generated by individual differences in eating traits can be modulated by D₃ receptor antagonists, warranting further investigation with measures of eating behaviour and weight loss.
... Studies have indicated that people with severe food deprivation (i.e., severe hypoglycemia, anorexia, chronic dietary restraint) attend to food more than those without, as demonstrated by studies examining preferential processing of food-related stimuli, 38 and recall of food-related words. [39][40][41] Future research could investigate if similar cognitive processes would also occur in less extreme circumstances, and if these processes translate to receptivity to food advertising. Another possibility is that if the advertised foods are abundant in the homes of overweight adolescents, the advertisements for those foods would be less novel or attractive. ...
Article
This study examined the relationship between adolescent weight status and food advertisement receptivity. Survey-based evaluation with data collected at baseline (initial and at 2 months), and at follow-up (11 months). New Hampshire and Vermont. Students (n = 2,281) aged 10-13 in 2002-2005. Overweight. Generalized estimating equations to model the relationship between identifying a food advertisement as their favorite and being overweight. Overall, 35.9% of the adolescents were overweight. Less than one fifth named a food advertisement as their favorite (16.1%). Most of the food advertisements were for less-healthful food (89.6%). After controlling for school, age, sex, sociodemographics, physical activity, number of TV sessions watched, and having a TV in the bedroom, overweight adolescents were significantly less likely to be receptive to food advertisements (relative risk = 0.83, 95% confidence interval 0.70, 0.98) compared to non-overweight adolescents. This study provides preliminary evidence that normal-weight adolescents are receptive to unhealthful food advertisements. Longitudinal studies are needed to evaluate whether consistent exposure to advertisements for unhealthful food, particularly if they are promoted with healthful behaviors such as being physically active, influence adolescents' food choices, and ultimately their body mass index, over the long term.
... Stroop Tasks were most frequently used (n = 9) in RE (Black et al., 1997;Francis, Stewart, & Hounsell, 1997;Green & Rogers, 1993;Mahamedi & Heatherton, 1993;Overduin, Jansen, & Louwerse, 1995;Perpina et al., 1993;Sackville et al., 1998;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997;Tapper, Pothos, Fadardi, & Ziori, 2008). Meta-analysis revealed a significant small effect size of d = 0.36 (95%CI: 0.07, 0.65). ...
Article
Maladaptive cognitions about food, weight and shape bias attention, memory and judgment and may be linked to disordered eating behaviour. This paper reviews information processing of food stimuli (words, pictures) in people with eating disorders (ED). PubMed, Ovid, ScienceDirect, PsychInfo, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Google Scholar were searched to December 2009. 63 studies measured attention, memory and judgment bias towards food stimuli in women with ED. Stroop tasks had sufficient sample size for a meta-analyses and effects ranged from small to medium. Other studies of attention bias had variable effects (e.g. the Dot-Probe task, distracter tasks and Startle Eyeblink Modulation). A meta-analysis of memory bias studies in ED and RE yielded insignificant effect. Effect sizes for judgment bias ranged from negligible to large. People with ED have greater attentional bias to food stimuli than healthy controls (HC). Evidence for a memory and judgment bias in ED is limited.
... According to the disequilibrium model, reinforcement effects can be produced by constraining access to the contingent activity. Alternatively, the constraints put on these alternatives may focus attention on the limited access object [34]. Increased attention to food may subsequently cause individuals to choose eating instead of participating in non-eating activities, or may predispose individuals to be more susceptible to eating when exposed to eating cues [35]. ...
Article
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Behavioral economics offers a framework to understand choice among alternatives. There is no research on the interrelationship between food and social activity in overweight and non-overweight children. The purpose of this study is to test the substitutability of food and social interactions using behavioral economic methods in overweight and non-overweight youth. Fifty-four (24 males and 30 females) overweight and non-overweight youth aged 9 to 11 years old were tested using a behavioral choice paradigm which involved participants responding to earn points exchangeable for food and/or social activity. Youth substituted food for social activities when the cost of social time with an unfamiliar peer increased (p < 0.05) and substituted food for social activities with an unfamiliar peer when the cost of food increased (p < 0.05). However, when interacting with a friend was the alternative, participants did not substitute food for social interactions. Social interactions can serve as a substitute for food in both lean and overweight youth.
... Higher scores indicate higher levels of hunger. Although the Grand hunger scale has not undergone any formal validation, the items have been shown to distinguish between fasting and non-fasting participants (Channon & Hayward, 1990;Placanica, Faunce, & Job, 2002;Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) and it has been employed in a number of food-related studies (e.g., Brignell, Griffiths, Bradley, & Mogg, 2009;Tapper et al., 2008). ...
Article
Existing Food Preoccupation Questionnaires do not take account of food-related thoughts that have a positive emotional valence. We report on the development and validation of a questionnaire that provides independent assessments of thought frequency and emotional valence (positive, negative or neutral). In Study 1 questionnaire items were validated against a three-day diary measure with 40 males and females. In Study 2 the questionnaire was administered to 130 males and females alongside a range of other measures. The questionnaire showed good construct validity, internal reliability, and test-retest reliability. Dieters and females scored higher on frequency and negativity subscales. There was also a significant interaction between sex and diet status on thought frequency, with females showing a stronger relationship between the two. The questionnaire should be useful for exploring the cognitive impact of dieting and relationships between food preoccupation, food processing biases and overeating.
... Diese Studien setzten vor allem das populäre modifizierte Stroop--Paradigma ein (sog. "emotional Stroop"; Brody, Keller, Degen, Cox & Schächinger, 2004; Channon & Hayward, 1990; Green, Elliman & Rogers, 1996; Lavy & van den Hout, 1993; Overduin, Jansen & Louwerse, 1995; Stewart & Samoluk, 1997) & Tiffany, 1997; Elash, Tiffany & Vrana, 1995).aufnahme hingegen zu. ...
Article
Ziel dieser ERP-Studie war die Untersuchung motivationaler Einflüsse auf die frühe visuelle Verarbeitung. In einem Versuchsdesign mit Messwiederholung erschienen 32 Versuchspersonen zweimal zur EEG-Messung, einmal hungrig und einmal satt. Hunger wurde operationalisiert als 24-stündige Nahrungsdeprivation. Mit einem 256-Kanal-EEG wurden ereigniskorrelierte Potentiale abgeleitet während die Versuchspersonen Bilder von Essen und Blumen betrachteten, die mit einer Darbietungsgeschwindigkeit von 660 ms präsentiert wurden. Aufbauend auf Überlegungen zur Theorie der motivierten Aufmerksamkeit wurde eine selektive Aufmerksamkeitslenkung auf motivational relevante Nahrungsreize im Hungerzustand erwartet. Diese sollte sich in ERP-Komponenten zeigen, von denen aus der Emotionsforschung bekannt ist, dass sie mit selektiven Aufmerksamkeitsprozessen in Verbindung stehen. Für die Blumenbilder, die den Status einer neutralen Vergleichskategorie hatten, wurde keine von der Nahrungsdeprivation abhängige Aufmerksamkeitslenkung erwartet. In einem weiteren Versuchsteil wurden emotionale Bilder dargeboten, um die Abhängigkeit der bei der emotionalen Bildbetrachtung etablierten Effekte vom Deprivationszustand überprüfen zu können. Wie erwartet zeigten sich in den ereigniskorrelierten Potentialen auf emotionale Bilder bei beiden Messterminen eine frühe posteriore Negativierung sowie eine späte zentrale Positivierung. Beide Maße korrelierten zwischen beiden Messungen überaus hoch miteinander. Die Effekte selektiver Verarbeitung von motivational relevanten Reizen fielen insgesamt schwächer aus als die aus der Emotionsforschung bekannten Effekte. In einer explorativen Analyse wird ein selektiver Prozess untersucht, der in Form von verstärkten Positivierungen auf Nahrungsbilder im Hungerzustand bilateral über parieto-okzipitalen Arealen zu beobachten war. Die Befunde werden in Bezug zur Theorie der motivierten Aufmerksamkeit interpretiert und vor einem evolutionspsycholo-gischen Hintergrund diskutiert.
Article
Objective: A recent meta-review of attentional bias research in eating disorders suggests that meta-analyses and systematic reviews include many low-quality and underpowered studies (Stott et al., 2021). As such, we examined whether published research examining the link between attentional bias, using the emotional Stroop task, and eating disorders among women with eating disorders has evidential value (ruling out selective reporting of a statistically significant effect) using a p-curve analysis. A p-curve analysis plots statisticall significant p-values onto a curve from .01 to .05 to examine its distribution. We hypothesized that the p-curve would be flat, indicating no true effect. Method: The hypothesis, database search strategy, and data analytic approach were pre-registered. The inclusion criteria were reports that compared control and eating disorder groups, reported inferential statistics, and that used body shape/weight or general threat target words. Results: Fifty published reports were included in the p-curve analyses. Unexpectedly, the half and full p-curves were significantly right-skewed, indicating evidential value. However, the results were not robust to the exclusion of the seven lowest p-values and on average, reports were underpowered. There were also 18 reports with null results (they had a p-value greater than .05), which precluded their inclusion in the p-curve analyses. Discussion: The findings suggest that most of the evidence from research examining attentional biases using the emotional Stroop task among women with an eating disorder or with elevated eating disorder symptoms is underpowered and so should be interpreted with considerable caution. Public significance: Concerns have been raised about the low quality of research examining attentional biases among women with eating disorders using the emotional Stroop task. In the current research, we observed that the evidential value of primary research reporting differences between women with and without eating disorders was equivocal and had low statistical power. These results can guide researchers towards conducting more rigorous research on attentional biases among people with eating disorders.
Article
Empirical evidence suggest that in several mental disorders a bias do exist in the information processing of symptom-related stimuli. The bias can be related to attention, memory and judgement processes. The attentional bias consists of a facilitating effect in the orienting of attention toward symptom-related stimuli or a difficulty in disengaging attention from symptomrelated stimuli. The attentional bias has been indicated as an important factor for the occurrence and the maintenance of several disorders. The aim of this review was to examine the literature available, addressing the issue of evidencing empirical support in the fields of anxiety disorder,depression, addiction, eating disorder and insomnia. Moreover we evaluated whether inconsistent results could be attributed to methodological differences (since the different paradigms used capture different aspects of the attentional bias process) or to conceptual reasons and to outline future perspectives.
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Attitudes exert a powerful influence on human decision-making and behavior; they are thought to be a driving force behind prejudice and are important factors in many consumer and health-related choices. Essentially, attitudes can be assessed in two ways: directly (explicit attitudes) or indirectly (implicit attitudes). Relative to explicit attitudes, which are subject to top-down control, implicit attitudes are thought to represent more of automatic an processing. In this review, this implicit/explicit distinction is explored in the context of food and eating behaviors, with particular emphasis on the various methodologies used to tap into implicit attitudes. The roles of implicit and explicit attitudes about food are discussed in the context of theoretical models emphasizing impulsive and reflective tendencies. Studies examining individual differences in and situational moderators of attitudes and their effects on impulsive and reflective processing are also examined. Explicit attitudes are most influential when a person has enough resources and motivation to exert self-control through reflective processing, whereas implicit attitudes will tend to predominate in states of low motivation or when resources are reduced via the impulsive system. Because of their ultimate effects on health-related choices, an understanding of implicit and explicit attitudes has important implications for obesity prevention and management, disordered and emotional eating, and addictive behaviors.
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The effect of food deprivation on the selective processing of food- and body-size-related information was investigated using a modified version of the Stroop task. Fasting subjects were slower than controls in color-naming food-related words but not body-size-related words. This interference effect was found for both males and females. The findings could not be explained in terms of other variables and appeared to be a reflection of current concern with food and eating produced by the food deprivation.
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