Abstract
Separate lines of research have demonstrated the role of mood and memory in the amount of food we consume. However, no work has examined these factors in a single study and given their combined effects beyond food research, this would seem important. In this study, the interactive effect of these factors was investigated. Unrestrained female participants (n = 64) were randomly assigned to either a positive or neutral mood induction, and were subject to a lunch cue (recalling their previously eaten meal) or no lunch cue, followed by a snack taste/intake test. We found that in line with prediction that food intake was lower in the lunch cue versus no cue condition and in contrast, food intake was higher in the positive versus neutral mood condition. We also found that more food was consumed in the lunch cue/positive mood compared to lunch cue/neutral mood condition. This suggests that positive mood places additional demands on attentional resources and thereby reduces the inhibitory effect of memory on food consumption. These findings confirm that memory cue and positive mood exert opposing effects on food consumption and highlight the importance of both factors in weight control interventions.
Highlights
The importance of memory in regulating how much food we consume has gained prominence in recent years.hippocampus and case studies from neuropsychology.hippocampus plays a central role in learning and memory (Vargha-Khadem et al, 1997), with interestingly, more recent evidence suggesting greater involvement in certain types of memory; episodic more than semantic (Steinvorth et al, 2005)
On the premise of limited capacity theory (Boon et al, 1998) and the deleterious effects of positive mood on memory (Stafford et al, 2010), we further expect an interaction of these two factors; where we tentatively predict more food will be consumed in the lunch cue/positive mood compared to lunch cue/neutral mood condition
Analysis revealed main effects of Mood, F(1, 58) = 26.23, p
Summary
The importance of memory in regulating how much food we consume has gained prominence in recent years. That theory has mostly been applied to restrained eaters (e.g. Lattimore & Maxwell, 2004), since work has found that distraction led to higher food consumption in unrestrained individuals (Boon et al., 2002), suggests that cognitive resources involved in controlling intake are limited in both restrained and unrestrained individuals This is underlined by one study that used. In one of those studies, free recall was lower for those individuals in the positive versus neutral mood induction (Stafford et al, 2010) It is theorized in the present study, that induction into a positive mood state would act to reduce attentional focus and thereby impair memory’s ability to access previous eating episodes. On the premise of limited capacity theory (Boon et al, 1998) and the deleterious effects of positive mood on memory (Stafford et al, 2010), we further expect an interaction of these two factors; where we tentatively predict more food will be consumed in the lunch cue/positive mood compared to lunch cue/neutral mood condition
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