Food is special by itself: Neither valence, arousal, food appeal, nor caloric content modulate the attentional bias induced by food images

You eye what you eat: BMI, consumption patterns, and dieting status predict temporal attentional bias to food-associated images

People know that overconsumption of high-fat high-sugar (HFHS) foods have negative consequences for physical and cognitive wellbeing but continue to consume these foods in excess, leading to recent proposals to model obesity as an addiction disorder. The current experiment tested, in a large undergraduate sample (N = 306), the hypothesis that obesity and overconsumption is linked with an oversensitivity to rewards that drives attentional biases towards foods and food-associated cues. Using a modified emotion-induced blindness task with food-related distractors, we examined the extent to which attentional biases to images of HFHS foods were accounted for by BMI, HFHS food intake, self-reported hunger, time since last meal, diet status, food preferences, and attentional control. We also examined whether the same individual differences predicted attentional priority to cues that have a learned association with HFHS foods (i.e., images of food logos). Contrary to our predictions, higher BMI predicted less attentional priority for images of food and food logos. At the same time, increased consumption of HFHS foods predicted increased attentional priority for food images, whereas dieting predicted increased attentional priority for food logo images. Our results suggest that different people may preferentially attend to food versus food logo imagery based on their relationships with food. More broadly, our results support the theoretical perspective that attentional biases to food-associated stimuli can be affected by various competing, state-related factors.

Sporadic fasting reduces attentional control without altering overall executive function in a binary classification task

Diets with intermittent fasting are an efficient method for producing clinically significant weight loss and preventing the development of obesity. However, individuals following intermittent fasting must face the difficulty of avoiding eating when experiencing the feeling of hunger. In this study, we investigated which aspects of executive function were affected following a prolonged period of food deprivation in participants that have never previously undergone intermittent fasting. Twenty-six participants with normal weight performed two binary classification tasks (Stop Signal (SST) and Go/NoGo) after either a 12 h fasting or a nonfasting period in separate sessions. We measured their performance in several underlying decision-making processes, such as response inhibition and attentional control. In line with previous studies, our results revealed that decision-making processes to resolve the classification task were unaffected by fasting. Response inhibition, as indexed by the stop signal reaction time in the SST, remained as well unaltered after food deprivation. Rather, we observed a higher error rate in NoGo trials following a fasting period, which was associated with disrupted attentional control. Overall, these results indicate that when a hunger feeling reaches consciousness, it induces deficits over certain aspects of attentional control. Our findings hint at the importance of structured behavioral change strategies to cope with fasting-induced difficulties in attentional control, to help achieve weight management goals through successful self-monitoring of food intake.

Event-related potentials of food-induced blindness in the rapid serial visual presentation paradigm

Emotion-induced blindness is known as the impairment in the identification of targets that follow shortly after emotional distractors in the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm. Besides negative or erotic stimuli, food distractors have also been found to elicit a similar effect. This indicates an attentional bias for food stimuli in the temporal dimension of visual attention, which is highly relevant in the context of eating behaviour. So far, the neural mechanisms of this food-induced blindness are widely unknown. In the present study (N = 53), we investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to food distractors and non-food targets in a single-target RSVP task. Automatic capture of visual attention by task-irrelevant food distractors was evident in enhanced Distractor Negativity (N2) and Early Food Positivity (P1). However, food distractors did not elicit a P3b. Thus, apparently, not the encoding of food distractors in working memory but alternative attentional processes are responsible for the food-induced blindness. Reduced target P3b reflected errors in target identification but was unaffected by the preceding distractor. In contrast, target N2 was specifically reduced for unidentified targets preceded by food distractors. Presumably, the attentional capture of food distractors may have caused a reduction of target N2, thereby contributing to the impairment in target identification. However, future research is needed to confirm this assumption and bridge the gap between the food-induced blindness on the behavioural level and the attentional capture of food stimuli reflected in the distractor ERPs.