Attentional Bias Of Female Graduate Students To High-calorie Food Cues In Emotionally Evoked State

Emotional eating refers to eating behavior as a behavior model to deal with negative emotions(such as stress,anger,depression,etc.).Emotional eating will greatly increase the possibility of eating disorders,and bring obesity and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular problems,but also damage mental health.In this situation,we urgently need to clarify the relationship between emotion and eating,help individuals identify emotional eating and real physiological eating,help individuals establish correct cognition,change unreasonable behavior patterns,reduce unhealthy food intake,establish more healthy eating habits,and promote individual physical and mental health.This study includes three experiments,taking female graduate students in Nanjing Normal University as subjects,using the response time of point detection paradigm as the dependent variable.In Experiment 1,32 subjects were recruited,and the experimental design of 3(picture type: pictures of high calorie food,pictures of low calorie food,pictures of food unrelated items)× 2(duration: 200 ms,500ms)× 2(consistency: consistent,inconsistent)was used to examine whether food pictures,as a kind of cue with the nature of reward,could cause individual attention bias,but not about the calories of the food.In Experiment 2,60 subjects were recruited,and a mixed experimental design of 2(picture type: high calorie food picture,low calorie food picture)× 2(duration: 200 ms,500ms)× 2(emotion induction: positive group,neutral group)was used to examine whether the subjects would produce attention bias to high calorie pictures in the state of positive emotion induction.In Experiment 3,91 subjects were recruited,and a mixed experimental design of 3(emotional induction: pressure group,negative group,neutral group)× 2(picture type: high calorie food picture,low calorie food picture)× 2(duration: 200 ms,500ms)was used to explore whether the subjects would produce attentional bias to high calorie pictures or stronger than neutral state from the perspective of stress and negative emotion Attention bias.The results showed that there was attentional bias to food pictures in general emotional state,and compared with low calorie pictures,the attentional bias to high calorie food pictures was stronger in 500 ms.Positive emotion induction could lead to increased appetite and attentional bias towards high calorie food,but there was no significant difference with neutral state.Under the induction of negative emotion and stress,the subjects showed attentional bias to high calorie food,but the periods of attentional bias were different.The attentional bias of stress group appeared in 200 ms,and that of negative emotion appeared in 500 ms.These results indicate that in general emotional state,food,due to its reward properties,can activate the reward circuit in the individual brain,which in turn increases the individual’s eating motivation and produces enhanced attention.Positive emotion,negative emotion and stress induce attention bias to high calorie food,but the degree and periods are different,which indicates that there may be different structures behind the emotional eating behavior induced by the three emotions.