7 - LEARNING + MOOD + EATING

Question 1

humans and meal time

Answer 1

• the time of day is the single most important factor determine when to start a meal
• people start to feel hungry around learned mealtimes

Question 2

animals and mealtimes

Answer 2

• rats given 1 meal a day, at a fixed time
• begin to show anticipatory behaviour prior to learned meal time
• even when they had just eaten

Question 3

the role of cues in meal times

Answer 3

• stimuli bit directly related to, but associated with, food can trigger a desire to eat (eg sitting at a restaurant table)
• rats trained to associate neutral stimuli with being fed
• once they have learned, food made continuously available
• but whenever the trained stimulus is presented, they will eat
• (cannot know if this is to do with feeling hungry, only can observe eating behaviour)

CANNOT BE A SPECIFIC MEAL TIME

HAS TO ACTUALLY INVOLVE EATING (not just salivating etc)

Question 4

the role of pleasure in eating

Answer 4

• to some extent, our taste preferences are hard wired
• sweetness = indicates a fruit is ripe (shows it has lots of sugar = energy - more likely to survive)
• toxic substances = often taste bitter - learn to like bitter foods (young children don’t like bitter foods)
• fine tuning of food preferences is learned
• anticipation of pleasurable food can stimulate hunger even if we have just eaten a big meal (eg hunger for pudding after a big meal)
• very monotonous diet = reduces appetite (sensory- specific satiety) = loss of pleasure

Question 5

the role of mood on eating

Answer 5

do people eat more when they’re down? (comfort food?)

Meyer and Wallace (1999a)

• neutral, appetitive or emotional words presented subliminally (in a way where people struggled to see any words at all)
• task = try and identify words (do not succeed)
• afterwards participants offered food
• measure of interest - how much do they eat?
• participant with abandonment related emotional words eat more

post hoc explanation = abandoned by the group
- evolutionary to eat more as lonely is dangerous

Question 6

more on cues

Answer 6

only when we have

• a cue
• that results in animal EATING
• when it doesn’t need to

= evidence of a cue affect eating behaviour