title: Brain Potentials Highlight Stronger Implicit Food Memory for Taste than Health and Context Associations.
abstract: Increasingly consumption of healthy foods is advised to improve population health. Reasons people give for choosing one food over another suggest that non-sensory features like health aspects are appreciated as of lower importance than taste. However, many food choices are made in the absence of the actual perception of a food's sensory properties, and therefore highly rely on previous experiences of similar consumptions stored in memory. In this study we assessed the differential strength of food associations implicitly stored in memory, using an associative priming paradigm. Participants (N = 30) were exposed to a forced-choice picture-categorization task, in which the food or non-food target images were primed with either non-sensory or sensory related words. We observed a smaller N400 amplitude at the parietal electrodes when categorizing food as compared to non-food images. While this effect was enhanced by the presentation of a food-related word prime during food trials, the primes had no effect in the non-food trials. More specifically, we found that sensory associations are stronger implicitly represented in memory as compared to non-sensory associations. Thus, this study highlights the neuronal mechanisms underlying previous observations that sensory associations are important features of food memory, and therefore a primary motive in food choice.
authors.affiliation: Top Institute Food and Nutrition, P.O. Box 557 6700 AN, Wageningen, the Netherlands.|Neuroimaging Center Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan 2, 9713 AW, Groningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Heleen R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Hoogeveen
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS, Groningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jolij
authors.affiliation: Top Institute Food and Nutrition, P.O. Box 557 6700 AN, Wageningen, the Netherlands.|Neuroimaging Center Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan 2, 9713 AW, Groningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Gert J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Ter Horst
authors.affiliation: Neuroimaging Center Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan 2, 9713 AW, Groningen, the Netherlands.|Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS, Groningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Monicque M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Lorist
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001244:Association; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000523:psychology; D015438:Health Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D013649:Taste; D055697:Taste Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult