Utilising the induced change blindness paradigm to investigate implicit food processing in restrained eaters

Abstract

Background: Implicit processing might help us to understand health behaviours such as impulsivity, self-regulation and the behaviour intention gap. The Induced Change Blindness (ICB) paradigm is used to investigate the cognitive processes that underpin a range of human behaviours. Research in health behaviours showed a significant advantage for the processing of alcohol-related objects in problem drinkers when compared to social and non-drinkers. This project utilised ICB to investigate the implicit processing of high restraint vs low restraint eaters when presented with images of high and low fat foods. Design: Twenty-two participants took part in a two (high and low restraint) by 10 (type of target object changed: 3 one change and 7 two change conditions) mixed design experiment with the number of cycles till change detection as the DV. A two by 10 mixed ANOVA with post hoc comparison was carried out. Findings: A two by 10 ANOVA yielded a significant main effect of restraint group (F (1, 20)= 65.77, p<0.001 np2 = 0.767) and a significant main effect for target object changed (F(9,180) = 30.10, p<0.001 np2 = 0.601), those effects were qualified by a significant interaction between the factors (F (9,180) = 14.23, p<0.001, np2 = 0.416). Discussion: The data shows that high restraint eaters are significantly faster at spotting, simple and complex changes to high fat foods, when compared to low restraint eaters. These data add to that literature but offer a new method of assessing the implicit processing involved food choices.