Study: Memory Influences Food Choices

A new study finds that memory of a given food may impact an individual’s eating habits.

A team of psychologists from the University of Basel in Switzerland showed 48 snacks—including chocolate bars, pretzels, and chips—via computer screen to 60 study participants, who were asked to rate each snack in order of preference.  
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The individuals taking part in the study then underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), at which time they were repeatedly asked to choose between 2 snacks. The authors note, however, that 30 participants were shown only the location of the snack, which meant they had to recall the snack linked to each location. The remaining 30 participants were shown the snacks on their computer screens.

Lead author Dr. Sebastian Gluth, a researcher in the department of psychology at the University of Basel, and colleagues found that participants selected the snacks for which they could better recall the location. In addition, they choose snacks they could recall even if they had previously assigned them a lower rating, according to the authors, who note that food choices of the 30 participants who were shown the snacks directly on the screen while undergoing fMRI correlated with previous preference ratings.

Using data gleaned from the fMRI scans, Gluth and his fellow investigators assessed participants’ brain activity as they made memory-based food choices, identifying an increase in communication between the hippocampus and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex as they made their selections, noting that these regions of the brain are involved in memory and decision making, respectively.

Physicians may tell patients that “when choosing food or restaurants, they should always try to make deliberate choices and think alternatives to those options that first come to their mind,” says Gluth.

It may be, he says, that the best- or first-remembered food or restaurant—which may not be a particularly good or healthy option—is “not the option they really like most, i.e., the option they would choose if they had all options at hand.”

That said, “I also have to emphasize that what we did is basic (and not applied) research,” adds Gluth, “and the extent to which our findings are important for everyday dietary decisions still have to be investigated.”

—Mark McGraw

Reference

Gluth S, Sommer T, et al. Effective Connectivity between Hippocampus and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Controls Preferential Choices from Memory. Neuron. 2015.