“Food for Memory”: Pictorial Food-Related Memory Bias and the Role of Thought Suppression in High and Low Restrained Eaters

Abstract

Building on cognitive theory, the present study is the first to test whether high restrained eaters show an immediate and delayed memory bias for pictorial food cues and to investigate the effects of food-related thought suppression on memory. Seventy participants (including both high and low restrainers) were asked either to suppress thoughts about food (Suppression food) or about animals (Suppression animals) or to monitor thoughts about food (Control food) or about animals (Control animals). Afterward, all participants were exposed to pictures of food and animals, and they completed two free-recall tasks for these cues. High restrainers remembered more food cues than low restrainers (both immediately and after delay). Also, the latter group remembered fewer food words than animal words, whereas there was no such difference in high restrainers. Hence, the results provide support for a pictorial food-related memory bias in high restrainers. The effects of suppression are less straightforward, but there was some support for a brief but enhancing effect of food-related thought suppression on memory for food cues.