Effects of allocation of attention on habituation to olfactory and visual food stimuli in children

Responding to food cues may be disrupted by allocating attention to other tasks. We report two experiments examining the effects of allocation of attention on salivary habituation to olfactory plus visual food cues in 8-12-year-old children. In Experiment 1, 42 children were presented with a series of 8 hamburger food stimulus presentations. During each intertrial interval, participants completed a controlled (hard), or automatic (easy) visual memory task, or no task (control). In Experiment 2, 22 children were presented with 10 presentations of a pizza food stimulus and either listened to an audiobook or no audiobook control. Results of Experiment 1 showed group differences in rate of change in salivation (p=0.014). Children in the controlled task did not habituate to repeated food cues, while children in the automatic (p<0.005) or no task (p<0.001) groups decreased responding over time. In Experiment 2, groups differed in the rate of change in salivation (p=0.004). Children in the no audiobook group habituated (p<0.001), while children in the audiobook group did not habituate. Changes in the rate of habituation when attending to non-food stimuli while eating may be a mechanism for increasing energy intake.