Study title

United Kingdom

Individual

156 participants were recruited for the study via the participant pool and newsletter announcements. The inclusion criteria were: 18-65 years old, willing to eat the food provided in the study, willing to fast for three hours between sessions 1 and 2, no history of eating disorders and fluent English speakers. Participants were also excluded if they were allergic to any of the foods provided. The aim of the study was to investigate how recalling a recent meal, and then performing a mental visualisation task, would affect snack intake. A between-subject design was used. Participants were randomly allocated to one of five conditions (recall+handling; recall+rumination; recall+enlargement; food picture+handling; non-food picture+handling).Two of the conditions were critical (recall+rumination and recall+enlargement). In these two groups, participants first recalled a recently eaten meal (which was served in the lab 3 hours earlier) and then listened to an audio recording which guided them through an imagination exercise. Those in the rumination group recalled their previous meal in a lot of detail, focussing on what it felt like to eat the meal. Those in the enlargement group visualised that their meal was bigger and more satiating than in reality. The remaining recall+ condition was a control group, where participants first recalled a recent meal and then imagined moving their recent meal around a plate. The other two control conditions did not involve recalling a recent meal at all, and the visualisation task involved a novel meal, and non-food items. In session one, all participants ate a lab-provided lunch and then three hours later returned to the lab to complete an imagination exercise and a bogus taste test of biscuits in session two. Participants ended the session by physically recreating the portion of food they received earlier. Participants rated their mood using a questionnaire presented in Qualtrics. Participants rated their mood on ten different aspects (thirst, hunger, tiredness, stress, happiness, relaxation, bloating, nervousness, excitement, irritability) on a slider scale which ranged from 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely). The questionnaire was used as a way of measuring hunger levels, without indicating to the participants that this variable was of a particular interest to the experimenter. The mood questionnaire also served to strengthen the plausibility of the ostensible aim of the experiment (understanding how mood affects taste).Participants also completed the Restraint subscale of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ; van Strien, Frijters, Bergers, & Defares, 1986) and the Disinhibition subscale of the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ; Stunkard & Messick, 1985). Both questionnaires were presented using Qualtrics and completed on a computer.