Frontiers in Psychology (Mar 2019)

Neurophysiological Effects Associated With Subliminal Conditioning of Appetite Motivations

  • Micah Amd,
  • Micah Amd,
  • Micah Amd,
  • Sylvain Baillet

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00457
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10

Abstract

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When attempting to encourage eating, explicitly providing statements like “eating is pleasant” may produce little effect. This may be due to subjective, negatively-valenced narratives evoked by perception of the verb “eating” (e.g., eating →fat →lonely), overriding any explicitly provided eating-pleasant valence information. In our study, we presented eating-related verbs under subliminal visual conditions to mitigate the onset of eating-associated deliberation. Verbs were linked with neutral or positively valenced terms across independent blocks. Modulations of event-related magnetoencephalographic (MEG) components and parietal activations in the alpha range (8–12 Hz) illustrated a significant effect of valence during pre-lexical time windows. We found significantly greater saliva production and declarations of increasing hunger after eating-related verbs were linked with positive terms. Orally reported preferences did not vary between conditions.

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