Combined effects of cognitive bias for food cues and poor inhibitory control on unhealthy food intake

Abstract

Please cite this as: Kakoschke, N., Kemps, E., and Tiggemann, M., 2015. Combined effects of cognitive bias for food cues and poor inhibitory control on unhealthy food intake. Appetite, 87, We are grateful to Paul Douglas for developing the software for the computerised administration of the dot probe task, the approach-avoidance task, and the go/no-go task.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Naomi Kakoschke, School of Psychology, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia.Electronic mail may be sent to Naomi.Kakoschke@flinders.edu.au COGNITIVE BIAS, POOR INHIBITORY CONTROL AND FOOD INTAKE 2 AbstractThe present study aimed to investigate the combined effects of cognitive bias (attentional and approach biases) and inhibitory control on unhealthy snack food intake. Cognitive biases reflect automatic processing, while inhibitory control is an important component of controlled processing. Participants were 146 undergraduate women who completed a dot probe task to assess attentional bias and an approach-avoidance task to asses approach bias. Inhibitory control was measured with a food-specific go/no-go task. Unhealthy snack food intake was measured using a so-called "taste test". There was a significant interaction between approach bias and inhibitory control on unhealthy snack food intake. Specifically, participants who showed a strong approach bias combined with low inhibitory control consumed the most snack food. Theoretically, the results support contemporary dual-process models which propose that behaviour is guided by both automatic and controlled processing systems. At a practical level, the results offer potential scope for an intervention that combines re-training of both automatic and controlled processing. COGNITIVE BIAS, POOR INHIBITORY CONTROL AND FOOD INTAKE 3 Combined Effects of Cognitive Bias for Food Cues and Poor Inhibitory Control on Unhealthy Food IntakeDuring the last three decades, the global prevalence of overweight and obesity has doubled, with 35% of adults classified as overweight and 11% as obese (WHO, 2013). One important contributor to chronic health problems such as overweight and obesity is unhealthy eating (NHMRC, 2003). The contemporary Western diet is characterised by unhealthy eating, in particular consuming too much fat, salt and sugar. Given the potential negative health consequences of unhealthy eating, it is important to investigate the cognitive mechanisms that underlie such behaviour. Specifically, recent theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence suggest that automatic and controlled cognitive processing make important contributions to unhealthy behaviour.Dual-process models (e.g., Strack & Deutsch, 2004) propose that our behaviour is determined by two different information processing systems, i.e., automatic and controlled processing. Automatic processing is fast, implicit and effortless, and includes affective (i.e., attitudes, preferences) and motivational (i.e., attending to, approaching) responses to relevant stimuli, s...

Spatiotemporal brain dynamics underlying attentional bias modifications

“…While growing evidence indicate that maladaptive behaviors indeed depend on the relative strength of automatic approach biases and inhibitory control capacity (e.g. Kakoschke et al, 2015), to our knowledge no study so far directly tested whether modifying attentional biases actually modulates inhibitory control performance. Results for an influence of the ABM procedure on inhibitory control performance would enable linking the processes involved in each system.…”

“…Results for an influence of the ABM procedure on inhibitory control performance would enable linking the processes involved in each system. For instance, if the development of an approach bias to a given stimulus with the ABM procedure leads to more inhibition failures to this stimulus, it would suggest that at least part of the cognitive processes inhibited during the control task are those modified when an attentional bias develops (Kakoschke et al, 2015;Meule and Platte, 2016).…”

General and Food-Specific Inhibitory Control As Moderators of the Effects of the Impulsive Systems on Food Choices

“…Many explanations have been proposed for problems regulating eating behaviors. Often, eating behavior seems to be governed not only by goal-directed behavior, but also by automatic reactions, as defined in the reflective-impulsive model (Strack and Deutsch, 2004; Hofmann et al, 2007, 2008, 2009b, 2011; Kakoschke et al, 2015). Thus, the present study aimed to clarify some of the explanations for these observations.…”

“…The impulsive system guides behavior through associative links (i.e., implicit preferences for food cues) and motivational orientations (i.e., automatic attention to food cues); this is an automatic process, which is fast, implicit, and effortless (Strack and Deutsch, 2004; Hofmann et al, 2007, 2008, 2009b; Kakoschke et al, 2015). Hofmann et al (2008) suggest that an implicit measurement tool is required to measure an impulsive system effectively.…”

“…Previous experiments have found that participants with a strong implicit preference or approach bias for snack foods, combined with low inhibitory control, gained the most weight (Nederkoorn et al, 2010) and consumed the most snack foods (Kakoschke et al, 2015). Furthermore, a study by Hofmann et al (2009a) identified G-IC as a moderator of the relationship between implicit preferences and eating behavior, with high inhibitory control decreasing the influence of implicit preferences on eating behavior.…”