• Jessica Werthmann, Matt Field, Anne Roefs, Chantal Nederkoorn, and Anita Jansen.
• Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: Jessica.Werthmann@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
• J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2014 Mar 1; 45 (1): 136-43.

ObjectiveThe current study examined experimentally whether a manipulated attention bias for food cues increases craving, chocolate intake and motivation to search for hidden chocolates.MethodTo test the effect of attention for food on subsequent chocolate intake, attention for chocolate was experimentally modified by instructing participants to look at chocolate stimuli ("attend chocolate" group) or at non-food stimuli ("attend shoes" group) during a novel attention bias modification task (antisaccade task). Chocolate consumption, changes in craving and search time for hidden chocolates were assessed. Eye-movement recordings were used to monitor the accuracy during the experimental attention modification task as possible moderator of effects. Regression analyses were conducted to test the effect of attention modification and modification accuracy on chocolate intake, craving and motivation to search for hidden chocolates.ResultsResults showed that participants with higher accuracy (+1 SD), ate more chocolate when they had to attend to chocolate and ate less chocolate when they had to attend to non-food stimuli. In contrast, for participants with lower accuracy (-1 SD), the results were exactly reversed. No effects of the experimental attention modification on craving or search time for hidden chocolates were found.LimitationWe used chocolate as food stimuli so it remains unclear how our findings generalize to other types of food.ConclusionThese findings demonstrate further evidence for a link between attention for food and food intake, and provide an indication about the direction of this relationship.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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