Thought for Food: Imagined Consumption Reduces Actual Consumption
Abstract
The consumption of a food typically leads to a decrease in its subsequent intake through habituation—a decrease in one’s responsiveness to the food and motivation to obtain it. We demonstrated that habituation to a food item can occur even when its consumption is merely imagined. Five experiments showed that people who repeatedly imagined eating a food (such as cheese) many times subsequently consumed less of the imagined food than did people who repeatedly imagined eating that food fewer times, imagined eating a different food (such as candy), or did not imagine eating a food. They did so because they desired to eat it less, not because they considered it less palatable. These results suggest that mental representation alone can engender habituation to a stimulus.
- Publication:
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Science
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.1195701
- Bibcode:
- 2010Sci...330.1530M
- Keywords:
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- PSYCHOLOGY