A picture-flavour paradigm for studying complex conditioning processes in food preference learning.
An important route through which food (dis)likes can be acquired is Evaluative Conditioning (EC). A simple and convenient EC procedure for studying food (dis)likes was described by Verhulst et al. [Verhulst, F., Hermans, D., Baeyens, F., Spruyt, A., & Eelen, P. (2006). Determinants and predictive validity of direct and indirect measures of recently acquired food attitudes. Appetite, 46(2), 137-143]. We compared this procedure, in which the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus form a compound, with an adapted version in which they are autonomous stimuli. Self-report and affective priming results indicated strong and comparable EC effects in both procedures. Hence, our adaptation constitutes a good alternative for the original procedure. It moreover allows investigating a broader range of topics in food preference learning.
Kerkhof
Inneke
I
Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Inneke.Kerkhof@psy.kuleuven.be
Vansteenwegen
Debora
D
Baeyens
Frank
F
Hermans
Dirk
D
D001290:Attitude; D003116:Color; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D013649:Taste; D014785:Vision, Ocular; D014796:Visual Perception