Time-course analysis of food cue processing: An eye-tracking investigation on context effects

• Published in: Food quality and preference Vol. 84; p. 103936
• Main Authors: Potthoff, Jonas, Schienle, Anne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01-09-2020
• Subjects: Calories; Context; Eye-tracking; Food cue reactivity; Time-course-analysis; Context; Food cue reactivity; Time-course-analysis; Eye-tracking; Calories
• ISSN: 0950-3293; 1873-6343
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodqual.2020.103936

•Time-course analysis of food cue processing via eye-tracking.•High-calorie food captured more early visual attention than low-calorie food cues.•Visual attention shifted to low-calorie food cues during a later processing stage.•Findings point to the interaction of visual context and timing for food cue processing.
Previous eye-tracking research has demonstrated that high-calorie food cues capture visual attention, particularly in individuals with overweight and weight concerns. The present experiment investigated whether this attentional bias can be influenced by context variables (i.e., the presence of pleasant low-calorie cues), and changes over time. This was studied via time-course analysis.
Ninety women (mean age = 25 years) were presented with 60 picture pairs (à 6 s) that either showed a combination of high-calorie food + low-calorie food, high-calorie food + non-food, or low-calorie food + non-food. The women were assigned to one of three groups (n = 30): overweight with weight concerns (OW+), normal-weight with weight concerns (NW+), normal weight without weight concerns (NW-). The relative number of fixations on (high-calorie) food cues was examined across the course of the picture pair presentations for one-second intervals.
High-calorie food was fixated more often than low-calorie food and non-food only during the first second of the picture pair presentation. Subsequently, all participants (independent of the group assignment) showed the tendency to gaze on low-calorie cues when these cues were combined with high-calorie cues.
This study revealed timing-related context effects on visual food cue reactivity. While the early attentional bias to high-calorie cues could not be changed by context, this was possible during the later processing stage. Future studies need to examine whether the observed context effect can influence food choices and eating behavior.