Inductive reasoning, food neophobia, and domain-specificity in preschoolers

Abstract

The present study aimed at unravelling the previously reported negative relationship between inductive reasoning performance and the intensity of food rejection tendency (namely food neophobia and pickiness) in preschoolers. More precisely, the objective of the present study is to determine whether the previously reported correlation between poor inductive reasoning performance and high food rejection score is restricted to the food domain only or extends to other domains (e.g. the artefact domain).To address these questions, we tested 109 preschoolers (mean age = 46.90 months). A food rejection score was computed beforehand with a hetero-assessment scale for each subject. Then, the children were asked to perform an induction task followed by a discrimination task on food and artefact stimuli. Results revealed that neophobic children were characterized by poorer induction performance in both the food and the artefact domain compared to their neophilic counterparts. In addition, our results support the hypothesis that inductive reasoning on food stimuli exhibits some sign of domain-specificity. We conclude that the results of the present study pave the way to evidence-based interventions in public health tailored to the specificities of preschoolers’ early food categories.