title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Porter Hall 208, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. morewedge@cmu.edu
authors.forename: Carey K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Morewedge
authors.forename: Young Eun
authors.initials: YE
authors.lastname: Huh
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vosgerau
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001066:Appetite; D002182:Candy; D002611:Cheese; D004435:Eating; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult