Does negative mood interact with eating style to predict attention bias towards and slowed disengagement from food stimuli?

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate whether trait eating behaviour interacts with negative mood to predict attention bias towards, and slowed disengagement from food. It was explored whether such biased attention predicts greater wanting of and actual consumption of high-fat snacks. Females completed the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire, and completed either a negative or neutral mood induction (listening to a piece of sad/neutral music whilst recalling an unhappy/neutral memory). Participants completed dot probe tasks with food/neutral picture pairs and a modified Stroop task with words presented in sequences of a food word followed by six neutral words (slowed colour-naming of food words indicating an orientation bias, slowed colour-naming of the neutral word following the food word indicating slowed disengagement). Preliminary analyses indicate no evidence of biased attention processing of food in the dot probe, regardless of restrained or emotional eating score or mood induction condition. In the food Stroop, response times were significantly longer for food words than all other word positions, with response times to food words being significantly positively correlated with emotional and external eating. Those in the negative condition displayed significantly greater wanting of crisps, and consumed significantly more chocolate fingers and Pringles in a ‘taste test’ than those in the neutral condition. Despite finding evidence of an orientation bias towards food, attention bias does not seem to mediate the negative mood/eating relationship, as task performance did not significantly predict consumption.