Inhibitory Control Under Negative Mood State In Different Subgroups Of Restrained Eaters

As the concept of “thinness is beautiful” has become more and more popular among the masses in the media,the weight control has become a topic of daily concern for many women.They are looking for ways to lose weight,with diet being the most common.Restrained eaters is a group of chronic dieters who are concerned about weight and weight loss for a long time,and most are women.According to previous studies,restrained eaters,in order to achieve the goal of controlling weight,intentionally reduce food intake,but in many cases,they will violate their diet goals to inhibit eating behavior,that is,uncontrollable intake of some high calories food,which ended up with a diet failure.And the emotion is one of the important incentives to trigger to suppress eating.Previous studies in this field have fully verified the effects of emotional state on the eating behavior of restrained eaters through behavioral experiments,while research from neurophysiological aspects is still lacking.Therefore,this study combined previous studies on the effects of negative emotions on the eating behavior of restrained eaters,using Go-Nogo research paradigm,watching video to induce the negative emotion,and using ERP research methods to conduct research.The purpose is to explore the characteristics of food-related inhibition control and general inhibition control ability of different subgroup of restrained eaters under negative emotions from the neurophysiological level,and provide some evidence of neurophysiological indicators for past behavioral studies.Study 1 used an adapted VAS scale,high-and low-calorie foods as experimental materials,and induces negative emotions and neutral emotions of the subjects through video viewing.The purpose is to examine the characteristics of food reward evaluation of high and low calorie food of successful/unsuccessfule restrained eaters under negative emotions.It also prepares for the experimental materials and subjects of the EEG research.The results showed that:(1)After the negative emotions were induced,the reward evaluation(health,taste and preference)of high-calorie foods of restrained eaters were higher.However,there is a significant decrease in the rewardevaluation of health and taste of low-calorie foods,which may indicate that negative emotions have an impact on the subjective food reward evaluation of restrained eaters,and the reward value evaluation of high/low-calorie foods.may be an opposite trend.In view of the higher of reward value for high-calorie foods in negative moods,we selected high-calorie foods as the stimulus that needed to be suppressed by subjects in later studies.(2)Under negative emotions and neutral emotions,the health evaluation of the high-calorie food of unsuccessful restrained eaters is significantly higher than that of successful restrained eaters,This may also provide some explanation for the failure of unsuccessful restrained eaters to overeat high-calorie foods.Study 2 used Go-Nogo research paradigm,food images as experimental materials,and negative emotions and neutral emotions by video viewing to conduct research.The aim was to examine the characteristics and differences in the food-related inhibitory ability of different subgroup restrained eaters under negative emotions.The results showed that:(1)After negative emotions were induced,different subgroups of restrained eaters induced significantly larger N2 a,N2b amplitudes and smaller P3 amplitudes during the inhibition task of high-calorie foods,indicating negative emotions significantly affect the food-related ability of conflict monitoring and inhibition control of different subgroup restrained eaters;(2)Compared with successful restrained eaters,unsuccessful restrained eaters induced significantly smaller N2 a amplitudes in both emotions,suggesting that the unsuccessful have worse conflict monitoring capabilities for high-calorie foods;(3)Compared with the neutral mood,the P3 amplitude of the successful restrained eater was significantly reduced after the negative emotion induction,which indicates that under negative emotions,the inhibitory ability of successful restrained eaters was improved,which may explain the dieting success.Because they can adjust their behavior to meet the dieting goals and achieve a successful diet in a challenging environment such as negative emotions.Study 3 used Go-nogo research paradigm,English letters as experimental materials,and negative emotions and neutral emotions by video viewing to conduct research.The aim was to examine the characteristics and differences in the food-unrelated inhibitory ability of different subgroup restrained eaters under negative emotions.The results showed that:(1)After negative emotions were induced,different subgroups of restrained eaters induced significantly larger N2 a,N2b amplitudes and smaller P3 amplitudes,indicating negative emotions significantly affect the general ability of conflict monitoring and inhibition control different subgroup restrained eaters.(2)There was no difference in EEG indicators among different subgroups restrained eaters,which may have food-specific differences in the inhibition control ability of different sub-class restrained eaters.This may prove that the difference in inhibition control ability of different subgroups restrained eaters is food specific.In summary,this study examined the neurophysiological characteristics of food-specific inhibitory ability and general inhibitory ability of different subgroups of restrained eating under negative emotions,and explored the characteristics of food reward evaluations of successful/unsuccessful restrained eaters under negative emotions.This study has some innovative implications in the following areas: First,in terms of research content,our study distinguished between two different subgroups of success/unsuccessful restrained eaters,revealing the characteristics and differences of neurophysiological indicators in the different subgroups under negative emotions.This provides neurophysiological evidence for behavioral studies of negative emotions affecting restrained eating,enriches studies of restrained eaters of inhibitory ability,and provides more detailed evidence for understanding the differences between two types of restrained eaters.In addition,the study found that negative emotions have an impact on the evaluation of food rewards for successful/unsuccessful restrained eaters,and that there appears to be an opposite trend in the effects of high/low calorie foods,which also provides some perspectives for subsequent research.Secondly,from the research method,this study is the first research adopting ERP technology in this field,providing neurophysiological interpretation and evidence for behavioral research.