Sensory specific satiety: More than 'just' habituation?
Sensory specific satiety (SSS) describes the decline in pleasantness associated with a food as it is eaten relative to a food that has not been eaten (the 'eaten' and 'uneaten' foods, respectively). The prevailing view is that SSS is governed by habituation. Nevertheless, the extent to which SSS results solely from this 'low-level' process remains unclear. Three experiments were conducted to explore the hypothesis that 'top-down' cognitive activity affects the expression of SSS; specifically, we manipulated participants' expectations about whether or not they would have access to alternative test foods (uneaten foods) after consuming a test meal (eaten food). This manipulation was motivated by 'Commodity Theory,' which describes the relative increase in value of a commodity when it becomes unavailable. We tested the hypothesis that a decline in the pleasantness and desire to eat the eaten food is exaggerated when uneaten foods are unavailable to participants. None of our findings supported this proposition - we found no evidence that SSS is dependent on top-down processes associated with the availability of other uneaten test foods.
Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK. Electronic address: L.L.Wilkinson@Swansea.ac.uk.
Laura L
LL
Wilkinson
Nutrition and Behaviour Unit, School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, 12a Priory Road, Bristol, BS8 1TU, UK.
Jeffrey M
JM
Brunstrom
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015992:Body Mass Index; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D062407:Meals / Q000523:psychology*; D057181:Pleasure / Q000502:physiology*; D012528:Satiety Response / Q000502:physiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013649:Taste / Q000502:physiology*
Commodity theory; Habituation; Perceived variety; Sensory specific satiety