Abstract
The detection of food is crucial for our survival and health. Earlier experimental psychological studies have demonstrated that participants detect food more rapidly than non-food stimuli. However, it remains unknown whether color, which was shown to have various influences on food processing, can modulate the detection of food. To address this issue, a psychological experiment was conducted using a visual search paradigm in which photographs of food (fast food and Japanese food) and kitchen utensils were presented alongside images of non-food distractors (cars), with both color and gray images used. Participants used a key to indicate whether one item was different from the rest, and their reaction times (RTs) were measured. RTs for the detection of both food types were shorter than for the kitchen utensils when color images were used, but not when gray images were used; moreover, the RTs were slower for gray images than for color images for both food types but not for kitchen utensils. These results indicate that color facilitates rapid detection of food in the environment.
Highlights
The detection of food is an initial and crucial stage in the conscious processing of food
Multiple comparisons indicated that both fast food and Japanese food were detected more rapidly than kitchen utensils, t(124) = 3.75 and 3.56, respectively, p < 0.001 for both, whereas no significant difference between fast food and Japanese food was observed, t(124) = 0.18, p = 0.855
The simple main effects of stimulus mode were significant for fast food and Japanese food, indicating faster detection of food in color images than in gray images, F(1,93) = 56.34 and
Summary
The detection of food is an initial and crucial stage in the conscious processing of food. Several experimental psychological studies have used visual search paradigms to demonstrate that food items are detected more rapidly than non-food items in the environment (Nummenmaa et al, 2011; de Oca and Black, 2013; Sawada et al, 2017, 2019; Sato et al, 2020). Sawada et al (2017) investigated the detection of color photographs of fast food, Japanese food, and kitchen utensils among a crowd of non-food distractors (cars). Reaction times (RTs) for the detection of food items were shorter than those for the detection of kitchen utensils, suggesting that food is rapidly detected
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