Food has the right of way: Evidence for prioritised processing of visual food stimuli irrespective of eating style

The Absence of Attentional Bias to Low-Calorie Food Stimuli in Restrictive Dieters: Differences in the Allocation of Attentional Resources to High-Calorie Foods

Restrictive dieters are those who expect to achieve body shape and weight control through dieting. However, they often have difficulty suppressing the desire to consume food when confronted with it. It has been shown that when high- and low-calorie foods are presented together, the attention of restrictive eaters is preferentially directed to high-calorie foods. However, whether attentional bias occurs when low-calorie foods are present alone and whether the allocation of attentional resources is consistent with that for high-calorie foods has yet to be explored. The present study focused on the effects of high-/low-calorie foods on attentional bias in restrictive dieters. Seventy-eight participants were recruited to participate in the experiment via the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) scale, which is administered in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. The results revealed that failed restrictive dieters had the lowest percentage of correct answers at the lag2 level, indicating attentional bias. Failed restrictive dieters allocated more attentional resources to high-calorie foods than to low-calorie foods. Restrictive dieters showed no attentional bias when low-calorie foods were presented alone. The results suggest that low-calorie foods do not elicit an attentional bias in restrictive dieters and that the allocation of attentional resources is not consistent when compared to that for high-calorie foods.

You eye what you eat: BMI, consumption patterns, and dieting status predict temporal attentional bias to food-associated images

People know that overconsumption of high-fat high-sugar (HFHS) foods have negative consequences for physical and cognitive wellbeing but continue to consume these foods in excess, leading to recent proposals to model obesity as an addiction disorder. The current experiment tested, in a large undergraduate sample (N = 306), the hypothesis that obesity and overconsumption is linked with an oversensitivity to rewards that drives attentional biases towards foods and food-associated cues. Using a modified emotion-induced blindness task with food-related distractors, we examined the extent to which attentional biases to images of HFHS foods were accounted for by BMI, HFHS food intake, self-reported hunger, time since last meal, diet status, food preferences, and attentional control. We also examined whether the same individual differences predicted attentional priority to cues that have a learned association with HFHS foods (i.e., images of food logos). Contrary to our predictions, higher BMI predicted less attentional priority for images of food and food logos. At the same time, increased consumption of HFHS foods predicted increased attentional priority for food images, whereas dieting predicted increased attentional priority for food logo images. Our results suggest that different people may preferentially attend to food versus food logo imagery based on their relationships with food. More broadly, our results support the theoretical perspective that attentional biases to food-associated stimuli can be affected by various competing, state-related factors.

Neurocognitive predictors of food memory in healthy adults - A preregistered analysis

Memory processes have long been known to determine food choices (Rozin & Zellner, 1985) but recognition memory of food and its cognitive, homeostatic and neuroanatomical predictors are still largely understudied. 60 healthy, overweight, non-restrictive eating adults (20 females) took part in a food wanting and subsequent food recognition and lure discrimination task at four time points after a standardized breakfast shake. With advanced tractography of 3 T diffusion-weighted imaging data, we investigated the influence of the uncinate fasciculus' (UF) brain microstructure on the interplay of food wanting and memory processes. The analysis was preregistered in detail and conducted with Bayesian multilevel regression modeling. Target recognition (d') and lure discrimination (LDI) performance of food tended to be higher than of art images while single image food memory accuracy evidently dominated art memory. On this single item level, wanting enhanced recognition accuracy and caloric content enhanced food memory accuracy. The enhancement by reward anticipation was most pronounced during memory encoding. Subjective hunger level did not predict performance on the memory task. The microstructure of the UF did neither evidently affect memory performance outcomes nor moderate the wanting enhancement of the recognition accuracy. Interestingly, female participants outperformed males on the memory task, and individuals with stronger neuroticism showed poorer memory performance. We shed light on to date understudied processes in food decision-making: reward anticipation influenced recognition accuracy and food memory was enhanced by higher caloric content, both effects might shape food decisions. Our findings indicate that brain microstructure does not affect food decision processes in adult populations with overweight. We suggest extending investigation of this interplay to brain activity as well as to populations with eating behaviour disorders.

ERP and attachment dimensions as predictors of seeking care or food comfort in stressful situations

In this study, we aimed to test the association of the Late Positive Potential (LPP) response and attachment dimensions in the choice of care/food pictures and its reaction time (RT) in threatening versus neutral conditions. Fifty-two participants (38 females, M_age 22.62) responded to the ECR questionnaire and were exposed to adequate visual stimuli, during EEG recording. Results showed that threatening stimuli increase the choice of care, decrease RT, and increase LPP magnitude in centro-parietal areas (Cpz, Pz, P3 and P4). Food choice was lower, with increased RT. Furthermore, larger LPP magnitude in centro-parietal cluster was associated with increased RT in the choice of care. Considering the dimensions of attachment, in threatening conditions, while anxiety was not associated with RT and care/food choice, avoidance was associated with an increase in care choice and RT. In conclusion, the specific association of increased RT in care choice with high LPP magnitude centro-parietal cluster may be explained in terms of a functional interference of these areas in the choice of care, but not of food. Further, we postulate that the increased RT of avoidant individuals may reflect a more articulated choice process.

Tasting inhibition: A proof-of-concept study of the food stop-signal game

Self-Control is an important skill in everyday life when attention is automatically drawn toward certain stimuli. For instance, food stimuli automatically capture visual attention and are processed preferentially. Therefore, efficient response inhibition is crucial to refrain from careless overeating. In the present proof-of-concept study we use a novel adaptation of a previously evaluated Stop-Signal Game (SSG) to measure reactive, food-specific, response inhibition in healthy adults. We analyzed a sample of 83 participants (60 female, mean age=24.1, mean BMI=21.71kg/m2) split into three groups. In a gamified stop-signal task, participants navigated an avatar in an urban environment toward high-calorie food, low-calorie food, or non-food stimuli in go-trials and were asked to inhibit the approach reaction in stop-trials. Hunger, eating styles, food craving, and impulsivity were assessed via self-reports to investigate their relationship with (food-specific) response inhibition. Results showed that response inhibition (in terms of stop-signal reaction time, SSRT) did not differ between the high-calorie, low-calorie, and non-food SSG which might be explained by characteristics of the sample. However, impulsivity was positively correlated with SSRT in the low-calorie SSG, whereas food-craving and hunger were positively related to response inhibition in the high-calorie SSG. Future studies could build upon the food SSG to measure and train food-specific response inhibition in the treatment of overeating.

Event-related potentials of food-induced blindness in the rapid serial visual presentation paradigm

Emotion-induced blindness is known as the impairment in the identification of targets that follow shortly after emotional distractors in the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm. Besides negative or erotic stimuli, food distractors have also been found to elicit a similar effect. This indicates an attentional bias for food stimuli in the temporal dimension of visual attention, which is highly relevant in the context of eating behaviour. So far, the neural mechanisms of this food-induced blindness are widely unknown. In the present study (N = 53), we investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to food distractors and non-food targets in a single-target RSVP task. Automatic capture of visual attention by task-irrelevant food distractors was evident in enhanced Distractor Negativity (N2) and Early Food Positivity (P1). However, food distractors did not elicit a P3b. Thus, apparently, not the encoding of food distractors in working memory but alternative attentional processes are responsible for the food-induced blindness. Reduced target P3b reflected errors in target identification but was unaffected by the preceding distractor. In contrast, target N2 was specifically reduced for unidentified targets preceded by food distractors. Presumably, the attentional capture of food distractors may have caused a reduction of target N2, thereby contributing to the impairment in target identification. However, future research is needed to confirm this assumption and bridge the gap between the food-induced blindness on the behavioural level and the attentional capture of food stimuli reflected in the distractor ERPs.

Adult Avoidant Attachment, Attention Bias, and Emotional Regulation Patterns: An Eye-Tracking Study

Proximity-seeking in distress situations is one of attachment theory's primary strategies; insecure individuals often also develop secondary strategies. The mechanisms implied in attachment deactivation constitute a key issue in the current debate related to their role in support-seeking. The main aim of this study is to investigate the attachment deactivation strategy and the processes of proximity/support-seeking under distress conditions by analyzing the attentional processes (i.e., an essential emotion-regulation strategy), using eye-tracking techniques. Seventy-two participants (45 female; M_age 23.9 ± 3.97) responded to the ECR-R questionnaire in order to identify their attachment style. They participated in an experimental situation in which they had to choose between pictures of care or pictures of food, following the presentation of threatening or neutral prime conditions (via the pictures' stimuli). Results showed that a care-consistency response pattern was the most frequent pattern of response, particularly under a threatening condition; on the contrary, only avoidant individuals showed a lower care-consistency response pattern by choosing food pictures. The overall findings demonstrate that avoidant individuals used the deactivation strategy to process comfort-related attachment pictures, suggesting that they considered these stimuli to be threatening. The implications for attachment theory and particularly for avoidant strategies are discussed.

A meta-analysis of the relationship between eating restraint, impaired cognitive control and cognitive bias to food in non-clinical samples

AIM

Food restriction is argued to be a precursor for unhealthy preoccupation with food, possibly leading to the development of an eating disorder. We updated previous meta-analyses that examined the relationship between eating restraint and deficits in either general or food-related attentional and inhibitory control. We hypothesized that inconsistencies in the literature around eating restraint, impaired cognitive control, impulsivity and cognitive biases for food could be attributed to the scale used to measure eating restraint.

METHOD

A (preregistered) subgroup meta-analysis examined whether patterns of impaired cognitive control and cognitive bias for food in predominantly healthy (non-clinical) samples differed as a function of the scale used to measure eating restraint. A series of exploratory meta-analyses were carried out for specific attentional bias tasks. In total 57 datasets were included.

RESULTS

The subgroup analysis did not provide evidence that the relationship between eating restraint and impaired or biased cognitions differed significantly as a function of restraint scale. Heterogeneity across studies was high. When examining specific attentional bias tasks there was no evidence that increased eating restraint was associated with increased attentional bias or distraction by food cues, regardless of which scale was used to measure eating restraint.

CONCLUSIONS

There is little experimental evidence for the common narrative that increased eating restraint is related to impaired cognitive control generally or increased cognitive bias for food, in non-clinical samples.

Food is special by itself: Neither valence, arousal, food appeal, nor caloric content modulate the attentional bias induced by food images

When food cues appear in a visual context, such information is likely to influence eating behavior by enhancing attention for food cues. We investigated whether active but task-irrelevant information could modulate the attentional bias for food stimuli using a novel paradigm in which participants were purposely deceived by being enrolled in a memory experiment. A set of images were first held in working memory and then used as task-irrelevant distractors in a subsequent single target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task, allowing us to investigate the attentional blink (AB) effect elicited by those images. In Experiment 1, the results revealed that food images elicited a larger AB effect than nonfood images. In three follow-up experiments, we investigated whether valence or arousal (Experiment 2), food preparation (Experiment 3), or food caloric content (Experiment 4) were factors related to the attentional bias for food. Overall, our results demonstrated that when held in working memory, food images can easily capture attention, even in circumstances in which the information retained in memory is irrelevant to solve the task, as indicated by the strong correlation found between items that were recognized in the RSVP task and the AB effect. Nonetheless, none of the food-related properties we examined were found to be associated with this attentional bias for food.