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We present a systematic empirical update and critical evaluation of the current status of research aimed at identifying a variety of psychological mediators in various forms of psychotherapy for depression. We summarize study characteristics and results of 35 relevant studies, and discuss the extent to which these studies meet several important requirements for mechanism research. Our review indicates that in spite of increased attention for the topic, advances in theoretical consensus about necessities for mechanism research, and sophistication of study designs, research in this field is still heterogeneous and unsatisfactory in methodological respect. Probably the biggest challenge in the field is demonstrating the causal relation between change in the mediator and change in depressive symptoms. The field would benefit from a further refinement of research methods to identify processes of therapeutic change. Recommendations for future research are discussed. However, even in the most optimal research designs, explaining psychotherapeutic change remains a challenge. Psychotherapy is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that might work through interplay of multiple mechanisms at several levels. As a result, it might be too complex to be explained in relatively simple causal models of psychological change.

Cognitions and emotions are considered important determinants of eating behaviour in cognitive behavioural models of obesity. Ecological data on these determinants is still limited. The present study investigated cognitions and emotions of overweight (n = 57) and healthy-weight (n = 43) participants via Ecological Momentary Assessment. It was found that eating-related cognitions mainly focused on desire and taste. Unexpectedly, dysfunctional cognitions (i.e., thoughts that may promote overeating) did not occur more often for overweight participants in almost all cases. So, the present EMA study provides no evidence for a role of dysfunctional cognitions in obesity-promoting eating behaviour when assessing eating-related cognitions immediately prior to eating events using a free-text format assessment. Right before eating events, participants mostly reported feeling calm/relaxed and cheerful/happy. Overweight participants scored higher on negative emotions, both at eating events and non-eating moments, than did healthy-weight participants. In addition, scores on standard questionnaires assessing emotional eating were positively associated with negative emotions reported at both eating and non-eating moments. As such, negative emotions, as assessed in the present study, do not seem to be specific triggers for food consumption.

Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) techniques gain more ground in studies and data collection among different disciplines. Decision tree algorithms and their ensemble variants are widely used for classifying this type of data, since they are easy to use and provide satisfactory results. However, most of these algorithms do not take into account the multiple levels (per-subject, per-day, etc.) in which EMA data are organized. In this paper we explore how the EMA data organization can be taken into account when dealing with decision trees and specifically how a combination of bagging and boosting can be utilized in a classification task. A new algorithm called BBT (standing for Bagged Boosted Trees) is proposed which is enhanced by an over/under sampling method leading to better estimates of the conditional class probability function. BBT's necessity and effects are demonstrated using both simulated datasets and real-world EMA data collected using a mobile application following the eating behavior of 100 people. Experimental analysis shows that BBT leads to clear improvements with respect to prediction error reduction and conditional class probability estimation.

Good self-control has been linked to adaptive outcomes such as better health, cohesive personal relationships, success in the workplace and at school, and less susceptibility to crime and addictions. In contrast, self-control failure is linked to maladaptive outcomes. Understanding the mechanisms by which self-control predicts behavior may assist in promoting better regulation and outcomes. A popular approach to understanding self-control is the strength or resource depletion model. Self-control is conceptualized as a limited resource that becomes depleted after a period of exertion resulting in self-control failure. The model has typically been tested using a sequential-task experimental paradigm, in which people completing an initial self-control task have reduced self-control capacity and poorer performance on a subsequent task, a state known as ego depletion. Although a meta-analysis of ego-depletion experiments found a medium-sized effect, subsequent meta-analyses have questioned the size and existence of the effect and identified instances of possible bias. The analyses served as a catalyst for the current Registered Replication Report of the ego-depletion effect. Multiple laboratories (k = 23, total N = 2,141) conducted replications of a standardized ego-depletion protocol based on a sequential-task paradigm by Sripada et al. Meta-analysis of the studies revealed that the size of the ego-depletion effect was small with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) that encompassed zero (d = 0.04, 95% CI [−0.07, 0.15]. We discuss implications of the findings for the ego-depletion effect and the resource depletion model of self-control. Contributing authors affiliated with Linköping University are also listed as Contributors in the list of the article's main authors.Contributing authors: Hugo Alberts, Calvin Octavianus Anggono, Cédric Batailler, Angela R. Birt, Ralf Brand, Mark J. Brandt, Gene Brewer, Sabrina Bruyneel, Dustin P. Calvillo, W. Keith Campbell, Peter R. Cannon, Marianna Carlucci, Nicholas P. Carruth, Tracy Cheung, Adrienne Crowell, Denise T. D. De Ridder, Siegfried Dewitte, Malte Elson, Jacqueline R. Evans, Benjamin A. Fay, Bob M. Fennis, Anna Finley, Zoë Francis, Elke Heise, Henrik Hoemann, Michael Inzlicht, Sander L. Koole, Lina Koppel, Floor Kroese, Florian Lange, Kevin Lau, Bridget P. Lynch, Carolien Martijn, Harald Merckelbach, Nicole V. Mills, Alexej Michirev, Akira Miyake, Alexandra E. Mosser, Megan Muise, Dominique Muller, Milena Muzi, Dario Nalis, Ratri Nurwanti, Henry Otgaar, Michael C. Philipp, Pierpaolo Primoceri, Katrin Rentzsch, Lara Ringos, Caroline Schlinkert, Brandon J. Schmeichel, Sarah F. Schoch, Michel Schrama, Astrid Schütz, Angelos Stamos, Gustav Tinghög, Johannes Ullrich, Michelle vanDellen, Supra Wimbarti, Wanja Wolff, Cleoputri Yusainy, Oulmann Zerhouni, Maria Zwienenberg

Attention bias for food could be a cognitive pathway to overeating in obesity and restrained eating. Yet, empirical evidence for individual differences (e.g., in restrained eating and body mass index) in attention bias for food is mixed. We tested experimentally if temporarily induced health versus palatability mindsets influenced attention bias for food, and whether restrained eating moderated this relation. After manipulating mindset (health vs. palatability) experimentally, food-related attention bias was measured by eye-movements (EM) and response latencies (RL) during a visual probe task depicting high-calorie food and non-food. Restrained eating was assessed afterwards. A significant interaction of mindset and restrained eating on RL bias emerged, β = 0.36, t(58) = 2.05, p = 0.045: A health mindset - as compared to a palatability mindset - attenuated attention bias for high-caloric food only in participants with higher eating restraint. No effects were observed on EM biases. The current results demonstrate that state differences in health versus palatability mindsets can cause attenuated attention bias for high-calorie food cues in participants with higher eating restraint. Our findings add to emerging evidence that state differences in mindsets can bias attention for food, above the influence of trait differences.

In this qualitative study, patients with comorbid substance use disorder (SUD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were interviewed on their ideas about the link between SUD and PTSD. Although they clearly reported self-medication, they also gave a more complex description of how they believe their PTSD influences their SUD. The results suggest that SUD/PTSD patients believe they did not start using substances because of their experienced traumas or PTSD, but that PTSD symptoms are nonetheless important in the maintenance of their addictions. A clear link exists between craving, relapse, and PTSD symptoms. SUD/PTSD patients would prefer a “whole-person approach” when being treated for their PTSD. It is suggested that the integration of skills training and attention for patients who are fearful of PTSD treatment might improve SUD/PTSD treatment results.

Working memory (WM), important for driving, declines with age. It was investigated whether a WM training would enhance aspects of cognitive ability and driving ability of older drivers. Thirty-eight drivers (mean age 71 years) were randomly assigned to an adaptive WM training (n = 19) or a non-adaptive WM training (n = 19). In addition, a no-training control group was collected (n = 18). During the pre-test and post-test, aspects of cognitive ability and driving ability were assessed. In between, participants in the adaptive training group and the non-adaptive training group conducted a WM training. We hypothesized that improvement on aspects of cognitive ability and driving ability will be largest in the adaptive training group, smaller in the non-adaptive training group and only minimal in the no-training control group. Results indicated that this hypothesis was confirmed for a measure of WM. For two driving measures (i.e., driving speed and reaction to stop signs), group means were in the expected direction, but results were only marginally significant. In addition, there were general test-retest effects for a measure of attention and one driving measure (i.e., gap acceptance). These results are in line with previous cognitive training studies with older people indicating training can improve performance on the trained tasks, but transfer to untrained tasks is only limited. Suggestions for future research are offered. This study was funded by the Policy Research Center for Traffic Safety. The authors want to thank Michiel Vestjens for his technical assistance with the training.

Intrauterine factors important for cognitive development, such as birth weight, chorionicity and umbilical cord characteristics were investigated. A total of 663 twin pairs completed the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised and scores were available for Performance, Verbal and Total Intelligence Quotient (IQ). The intrauterine factors examined were birth weight, placental weight and morphology, cord knots, cord length and cord insertion. IQ scores for the varying levels of the intrauterine markers adjusting for gender and gestational age were calculated. The heritability of IQ and the association between IQ and intrauterine environment were examined. Twins with lower birth weight and cord knots had lower IQ scores. The aetiology of IQ is largely distinct from that of birth weight and cord knots, and non-shared environment may influence the observed relationships.

The present study tested the impact of experimentally manipulated perceived availability of chocolate on attention for chocolate stimuli, momentary (state) craving for chocolate and consumption of chocolate in healthy weight female students. It was hypothesized that eating forbiddance would be related to attentional avoidance (thus diminished attention focus on food cues in an attempt to prevent oneself from processing food cues) and that eating motivation would be related to attentional approach bias (thus maintained attentional focus on food cues). High chronic chocolate cravers (n = 40) and low cravers (n = 40) participated in one of four perceived availability contexts (required to eat, forbidden to eat, individual choice to eat, and 50% chance to eat) following a brief chocolate exposure. Attention for chocolate was measured using eye-tracking; momentary craving from self-report; and the consumption of chocolate was assessed from direct observation. The perceived availability of chocolate did not significantly influence attention allocation for chocolate stimuli, momentary craving or chocolate intake. High chocolate cravers reported significantly higher momentary craving for chocolate (d = 1.28, p

Animals can learn that specific contexts are associated with important biological events such as food intake through classical conditioning. Very few studies suggest this is also possible in humans and contextual appetitive conditioning might even be a main determinant of habitual overeating in vulnerable humans. A Virtual Reality laboratory was used to test whether humans show conditioned responding (increased food desires and expectations, increased salivation and increased food intake) to a specific context after repeated pairings of this context with intake. It was also examined whether the personality trait impulsivity strengthens this contextual appetitive conditioning. Conditioned context-induced reactivity was indeed demonstrated and impulsivity predicted increased intake in only the intake-associated context. It is concluded that humans easily learn desires to eat in intake-related environments. The data also suggest that in particular more impulsive people are vulnerable for conditioned context-induced overeating. This relatively easy learning of associations between specific contexts and intake might stimulate habitual overeating and contribute to increased obesity prevalence.

Objective Restrained eating style and weight status are highly correlated. Though both have been associated with an attentional bias for food cues, in prior research restraint and BMI were often confounded. The aim of the present study was to determine the existence and nature of an attention bias for food cues in healthy-weight female restrained and unrestrained eaters, when matching the two groups on BMI. Method Attention biases for food cues were measured by recordings of eye movements during a visual probe task with pictorial food versus non-food stimuli. Healthy weight high restrained (n = 24) and low restrained eaters (n = 21) were matched on BMI in an attempt to unconfound the effects of restraint and weight on attention allocation patterns. Results All participants showed elevated attention biases for food stimuli in comparison to neutral stimuli, independent of restraint status. Discussion These findings suggest that attention biases for food-related cues are common for healthy weight women and show that restrained eating (per se) is not related to biased processing of food stimuli, at least not in healthy weight participants.

Although restrained eaters try to limit their food intake, they often fail and indulge in exactly those foods that they want to avoid. A possible explanation is a temporal attentional bias for food cues. It could be that for these people food stimuli are processed relatively efficiently and require less attentional resources to enter awareness. Once a food stimulus has captured attention, it may be preferentially processed and granted prioritized access to limited cognitive resources. This might help explain why restrained eaters often fail in their attempts to restrict their food intake. A Rapid Serial Visual Presentation task consisting of dual and single target trials with food and neutral pictures as targets and/or distractors was administered to restrained (n = 40) and unrestrained (n = 40) eaters to study temporal attentional bias. Results indicated that (1) food cues did not diminish the attentional blink in restrained eaters when presented as second target; (2) specifically restrained eaters showed an interference effect of identifying food targets on the identification of preceding neutral targets', (3) for both restrained and unrestrained eaters, food cues enhanced the attentional blink; (4) specifically in restrained eaters, food distractors elicited an attention blink in the single target trials. In restrained eaters, food cues get prioritized access to limited cognitive resources, even if this processing priority interferes with their current goals. This temporal attentional bias for food stimuli might help explain why restrained eaters typically have difficulties maintaining their diet rules. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background and objectives: In their paper, "Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm", Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji (2003) investigated different ways to calculate the IAT-effect. However, up to now, it remained unclear whether these findings based on internet data also generalize to laboratory settings. Therefore, the main goal of the present study was to cross-validate scoring algorithms for the IAT in a laboratory setting, specifically in the domain of psychopathology.Methods: Four known IAT algorithms and seven alternative IAT algorithms were evaluated on several performance criteria in the large-scale laboratory sample of the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (N = 2981) in which two IATs were included to obtain measurements of automatic self-anxious and automatic self-depressed associations.Results and conclusions: Results clearly demonstrated that the D-2SD-measure and the D-600-measure as well as an alternative algorithm based on the correct trials only (D-noEP-measure) are suitable to be used in a laboratory setting for IATs with a fixed order of category combinations. It remains important to further replicate these findings, especially in studies that include outcome measures of more spontaneous kinds of behaviors. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Emotional eaters are often presumed to eat in response to negative emotions, while positive emotions have been largely neglected. The current study induced a positive, negative, or neutral mood in a student sample and subsequently measured food intake. In addition, the relation between caloric intake and mood improvement was assessed. It was expected that emotional eaters would consume more food than non-emotional eaters in the emotional conditions, and also more than in the neutral condition. Moderated regression analyses indeed showed a significant increase in food intake for emotional eaters in the positive compared to the neutral condition, and a trend towards higher food consumption than non-emotional eaters. No effects were found in the negative condition. With regard to mood changes during food intake, Pearson correlations demonstrated an association between amount of calories consumed and mood improvement after 5min of food consumption. However, there was no evidence for differences between emotional and non-emotional eaters. The current findings underline the importance of positive emotions in emotional eating, and provide new insights on the relationship between eating and mood melioration.

A functional polymorphism within the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) has been reported to modulate emotionality and risk for affective disorders. The short (S) allele has less functional efficacy than the long (L) allele and has been associated with enhanced emotional reactivity. One possible contributing factor to the high emotionality in S carriers may be inefficient use of cognitive strategies such as reappraisal to regulate emotional responses. The aim of the present study was to test whether the 5-HTTLPR genotype modulates the neural correlates of emotion regulation. To determine neural differences between S and L allele carriers during reappraisal of negative emotions, 15 homozygous S (S'/S') and 15 homozygous L (L'/L') carriers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), while performing an instructed emotion regulation task including downregulation, upregulation and passive viewing of negative emotional pictures. Compared to L'/L' allele carriers, subjects who carry the S'/S' allele responded with lower posterior insula and prefrontal brain activation during passive perception of negative emotional information but showed greater prefrontal activation and anterior insula activation during down- and upregulation of negative emotional responses. The current results support and extend previous findings of enhanced emotionality in S carriers by providing additional evidence of 5-HTTLPR modulation of volitional emotion regulation.

Past research has shown that parental longevity is related to offspring physical health and longevity. Preliminary studies suggest that parental longevity may be linked to the offsprings personality traits. A comprehensive 5-factor personality model has been related to physical health, but the association with parental longevity has not yet been investigated. We used a 5-factor personality model to investigate the relationship between parental longevity and offspring personality. Data from the longitudinal Health and Retirement Study (HRS) was used in the analyses. Using the Midlife Development Inventory and the Life Orientation test, the relationship between parental attained age and offspring personality was assessed using regression models for both men and women. Male offspring of long-lived fathers and mothers were more likely to be open to new experiences (p < .01) and be more extroverted (p .03) compared with male offspring of short-lived fathers or mothers. Maternal or paternal attained age had no effect on the female offspring personality traits. Personality is an important phenotype to consider when investigating genetic and environmental determinants of longevity. Further research is needed to investigate the potential of gender-specific mechanisms.

Food craving is an intense desire or urge to eat a certain food. It is under control of food-related cues, such as the sight, smell, and taste of one’s favorite food items. It is argued that when the ingestion of food is associated with a rewarding consequence then the incentive value of that particular food increases and its sensory attributes become signals for satisfaction. This attribution of incentive value is the result of pavlovian conditioning and is what makes certain food cues so desirable. Further, food craving reactivity reflects a central motivational state. It is suggested that cue exposure with response prevention may be a useful addition to weight loss treatment programs as it can teach one to handle strong urges to eat. Reducing exposure to food cues by regulating food marketing could further lower the number of occasions that food cravings are triggered.

RATIONALE: Cue-elicited craving is a well-researched phenomenon in alcohol literature. However, not all alcohol-dependent people display the same reactivity to alcohol cues. Personality factors such as multiple impulsivity traits may be responsible for individual differences in cue reactivity by modulating its intensity. Nevertheless, there has been a scarcity of empirical studies testing this assumption in alcohol literature. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of response inhibition and trait impulsiveness on cue-elicited craving for alcohol in alcohol-dependent drinkers. METHODS: Participants (n = 41) were inpatients of the private clinic U-Center, Netherlands. Alcohol exposure took place in a real bar-restaurant close to the premises of the clinic, and participants were exposed to real alcohol cues. Response inhibition was assessed with the stop-signal task and trait impulsiveness with the Barratt impulsivity scale version 11. RESULTS: The cue exposure was successful as alcohol-dependent patients experienced higher craving for alcohol when exposed to alcohol rather than to neutral cues. Additionally, both response inhibition and trait impulsiveness predicted cue-elicited craving for alcohol. Trait impulsiveness predicted both the absolute craving in the bar-restaurant and the increase in cue-elicited craving during the whole alcohol cue exposure, while response inhibition predicted only the former. CONCLUSIONS: The results clearly implicate both trait impulsiveness and response inhibition in the modulation of cue-elicited craving in alcohol dependence. Theoretical and methodological issues in the findings and their clinical implications in alcohol treatment and relapse are discussed.

For many years, questionnaires have been considered the standard when examining emotional eating behavior. However, recently, some controversy has arisen about these questionnaires, and their usefulness in identifying emotional eaters has been questioned. The current study aimed to investigate the Single Target Implicit Association Test (ST-IAT) as a measure of emotional eating. Two ST-IATs (assessing food-positive and food-negative associations respectively) and the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ) were compared in undergraduate students. A positive, negative or neutral mood was induced by means of a film clip, and milkshake consumption was measured during and after the mood induction. It was hypothesized that participants with strong emotion-food associations on the ST-IATs (i.e., IAT-emotional eaters) would consume more food in the emotion induction condition corresponding to that emotion, as compared to those with weak emotion-food associations as well as to those in the neutral condition. Participants who scored high on both the positive and negative ST-IATs ate more during a positive mood induction than during a negative mood induction. This effect did not extend to milkshake consumption after the mood induction procedure. In addition, IAT-positive emotional eaters consumed more food than IAT-non-emotional eaters. No effects of the DEBQ on milkshake consumption were found. It is concluded that the ST-IAT has potential as a measure of emotional eating.

Objective: The present research tested whether an evaluative conditioning intervention makes thin-ideal models less enviable as standards for appearance-based social comparisons (Study 1), and increases body satisfaction (Study 2). Design: Female participants were randomly assigned to intervention versus control conditions in both studies (ns = 66 and 39). Intervention participants learned to associate thin-ideal models with synonyms of fake whereas control participants completed an equivalent task that did not involve learning this association. Main outcome measures: The dependent variable in Study 1 was an implicit measure of idealization of slim models assessed via a modified Implicit Association Test (IAT). Study 2 used a validated, self-report measure of body satisfaction as the outcome variable. Results: Intervention participants showed significantly less implicit idealization of slim models on the IAT compared to controls (Study 1). In Study 2, participants who undertook the intervention exhibited an increase in body satisfaction scores whereas no such increase was observed for control participants. Conclusion: The present research indicates that it is possible to overcome the characteristic impact of thin-ideal models on women's judgments of their bodies. An evaluative conditioning intervention made it less likely that slim models were perceived as targets to be emulated, and enhanced body satisfaction.

In the current study we tried to elucidate the relationship between a personality trait, reward sensitivity, and an environmental variable; food variety. Based on scarce previous research we predicted that reward sensitivity would interact with variety in the food environment so that especially high reward sensitive individuals would be vulnerable to overeating in a varied food environment. It turned out that especially the high reward individuals did indeed overeat in a varied food environment. However, this was only the case for the highly reward sensitive individuals who experienced feelings of hunger. In other words, reward sensitivity does not affect food intake in varied food environments as long as feelings of hunger are not present. Future research should concentrate on identifying other factors that interact with the person and the environment to discourage reward-related overeating.

Objectives: The purpose of this article is to critically evaluate the following claims derived from contemporary theoretical models of attentional bias (AB) for food- and drug-related stimuli: (a) AB is a characteristic feature of obesity and addiction, (b) AB predicts future behavior, (c) AB exerts a causal influence on consummatory behavior, and (d) AB reflects appetitive motivational processes. Method: A focused discussion of the relevant literature is presented. Results: The available evidence reveals inconsistencies with the aforementioned claims. Specifically, AB is not consistently associated with individual differences in body weight or drug use, AB does not consistently predict or influence distal consummatory behavior, and AB may be influenced by both appetitive and aversive motivational processes. These insights are synthesized into a theoretical account that claims that AB for food- and drug-related stimuli arises from momentary changes in evaluations of those stimuli that can be either positive (when the incentive value of the food or drug is high), negative (when individuals have a goal to change their behavior, and those stimuli are perceived as aversive), or both (when individuals experience motivational conflict, or ambivalence). Conclusions: The proposed theoretical synthesis may account for the contributions of appetitive and aversive motivational processes involved in self-regulatory conflicts to AB, and it yields testable predictions about the conditions under which AB should predict and have a causal influence on future consummatory behavior. This has implications for the prediction and modification of unhealthy behaviors and associated disorders. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Food cue reactivity is a strong motivation to eat, even in the absence of hunger. Therefore, food cue reactivity might sabotage healthy eating, induce weight gain and impede weight loss or weight maintenance. Food cue reactivity can be learned via Pavlovian appetitive conditioning: It is easily acquired but the extinction of appetitive responding seems to be more challenging. Several properties of extinction make it fragile: extinction does not erase the original learning and extinction is context-dependent. These properties threaten full extinction and increase the risk of full relapse. Extinction procedures are discussed to reduce or prevent the occurrence of rapid reacquisition, spontaneous recovery, renewal and reinstatement after extinction. A translation to food cue exposure treatment is made and suggestions are provided, such as conducting the exposure in relevant contexts, using occasional reinforcement and targeting expectancy violation instead of habituation. A new hypothesis proposed here is that the adding of inhibition training to strengthen inhibition skills that reduce instrumental responding, might be beneficial to improve food cue exposure effects.

Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) data is organized in multiple levels (per-subject, per-day, etc.) and this particular structure should be taken into account in machine learning algorithms used in EMA like decision trees and its variants. We propose a new algorithm called BBT (standing for Bagged Boosted Trees) that is enhanced by a over/under sampling method and can provide better estimates for the conditional class probability function. Experimental results on a real-world dataset show that BBT can benefit EMA data classification and performance., to be presented at ECAI2016

Human laboratory studies have shown that eating desires are easily learned through classical conditioning: after a few pairings of an initially neutral stimulus (e.g., a box) with the intake of palatable food (e.g., chocolate), the stimulus elicits increased eating expectancies and eating desires (acquisition). After repeated non-reinforced presentations of the chocolate-associated stimulus, eating expectancies and desires decrease again (extinction). It is commonly assumed that eating desires in daily life are acquired and extinguished in a similar manner, but to date, this has not been empirically tested. In two studies, we examined whether the repeated consumption of chocolate at a specific time of day elicits increased eating expectancies and eating desires over a period of 5 days (study 1) or 15 days (study 2), and relative to a time of day not paired with chocolate intake. Further, it was tested whether acquired responding diminishes again during extinction (study 1). Ecological momentary assessment was used to carry out the studies in daily life. Results showed that eating expectancies were acquired in both studies. Only in study 2, eating desires were also successfully learned. It is concluded that eating expectancies and eating desires can be conditioned to ecologically valid cues and under real-life circumstances. This highlights the importance of associative learning processes in the experience of eating desires in daily life.

BACKGROUND: There is increasing evidence that obesity is related to asthma development and severity. However, it is largely unknown whether weight reduction can influence asthma management, especially in children.OBJECTIVE: To determine the effects of a multifactorial weight reduction intervention on asthma management in overweight/obese children with (a high risk of developing) asthma.METHODS: An 18-month weight-reduction randomized controlled trial was conducted in 87 children with overweight/obesity and asthma. Every six months, measurements of anthropometry, lung function, lifestyle parameters and inflammatory markers were assessed. Analyses were performed with linear mixed models for longitudinal analyses.RESULTS: After 18 months, the body mass index-standard deviation score decreased by -0.14±0.29 points (p0.05). Asthma features (including asthma control and asthma-related quality of life) and lung function indices (static and dynamic) improved significantly over time in both groups. The FVC% predicted improved over time by 10.1 ± 8.7% in the intervention group (pCONCLUSIONS & CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Clinically relevant improvements in body weight, lung function and asthma features were found in both the intervention and control group, although some effects were more pronounced in the intervention group (FVC, asthma control, and quality of life). This implies that a weight reduction intervention could be clinically beneficial for children with asthma.TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00998413.

Background: Children’s picky eating behaviour has been linked both to being overweight and underweight. However, the role of parenting practices in this relationship has rarely been investigated. The present study aimed to clarify the direction of the association between picky eating and weight status and to examine the moderating role of food parenting practices. Methods: The present study comprised a longitudinal study on the effects of picky eating on child weight status within the KOALA Birth Cohort Study, the Netherlands. Mothers and their children were included in the analyses. Children’s picky eating behaviour and food parenting practices were assessed at baseline (child age 5 years). Their weight status was assessed repeatedly until age 9 years. Mixed effects linear and logistic regressions were used to compare picky eaters (n = 403) and non-picky eaters (n = 621) on changes in weight status over the years. Results: At baseline of age 5 years, picky eaters were slightly shorter, more often underweight and less often overweight than non-picky eaters, whereas energy intake in relation to body weight (kJ kg 1 ) was similar. Picky eaters with a normal weight at baseline had no increased risk of becoming underweight during follow-up until age 9 years, and were less likely to become overweight compared to non-picky eaters. There were no interactions with food parenting practices. The parents of picky eaters more often reported pressuring their child to eat and restrict unhealthy food intake compared to parents of non-picky eaters. Conclusions: The association between picky eating and child weight status was not influenced by parenting practices.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140771.].

In this paper a framework for warning people when they are at risk of unhealthy eating is presented. Data is collected trough a mo- bile application called “ThinkSlim” which was developed for the purpose of studying eating behavior using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) principles. Data is converted in order to allow early prediction of healthy and unhealthy eating events and a decision tree algorithm taking into account the longitudinal structure of the dataset is utilized to predict healthy versus unhealthy eating events. Rules that are derived from this decision tree are used to cluster users to groups based on the rule triggering frequen- cies. Groups created are used for providing users with semi-tailored feedback and are analyzed providing useful insights regarding the conditions that lead to unhealthy eating among different participants allowing for building different eating profiles.

Based on recent studies indicating that emotional eating is not the clearly defined problem it is often thought to be, the present study investigated whether emotional eaters overeat merely in response to negative emotional cues, or to other cues as well. It was hypothesized that emotional eaters would overeat after a variety of food cues, not limited to negative emotions. Participants took part in four conditions (negative mood manipulation, positive mood manipulation, food exposure and a control condition) divided over two sessions. Each condition was followed by a bogus taste test, after which food intake was measured. Results showed strong correlations between food intake after all four conditions, indicating that increased intake after one type of cue is related to increased intake after other cues. Participants were identified as emotional or non-emotional eaters based on food intake in the negative mood condition, and based on self-reported emotional eating scores. Both measures of emotional eating were significantly related to food intake after all cues. Based on the current findings, we conclude that individuals who show increased food intake when in a negative emotional state also overeat when experiencing other food-signalling cues. This indicates that 'emotional eating' may not fully capture the eating behaviour of individuals currently identified as 'emotional eaters'. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Man is born with few flavor preferences. Most flavor preferences are acquired through direct experiential learning. One type of such learning concerns Pavlovian conditioning in which a flavor becomes better liked through its association with an already liked taste, nutritive outcome, or another positive postingestive effect. Pavlovian conditioning also underlies the experience of food craving, an intense desire for a certain food item. Food craving is elicited by cues predicting the intake of a particularly palatable food. Pavlovian food cues thus motivate instrumental food seeking and eating. Research demonstrates that increased liking and preference for healthier foods can be conditioned by pairing a healthy flavor with a positive outcome (Pavlovian conditioning), and by pairing the consumption of healthy foods with a rewarding outcome (instrumental conditioning).

This paper describes a Dutch translation and validation of the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2; Tylka & Wood-Barcalow, 2015a), an instrument for assessing key components of positive body image. Dutch speaking female university students (N=310, M-age = 21.31, SD=3.04) completed the Dutch BAS-2. To assess its construct validity, participants also completed measures of appearance satisfaction, functionality satisfaction, self-objectification, self-esteem, and optimistic life orientation. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a one-dimensional factor structure of the Dutch BAS-2, substantiating the BAS-2 factor structure found in samples of U.S., Chinese, and Iranian university students and community adults. Dutch BAS-2 scores also demonstrated good internal consistency (alpha=.90), convergent validity, and incremental validity. In addition, lower body mass indices were associated with higher Dutch BAS-2 scores. The present findings support the cross-cultural equivalence of the BAS-2 and thus its promise in enabling research on positive body image in diverse cultural contexts.

Ecological momentary assessment (ema) techniques have been blooming during the last years due to the emergence of smart devices (like pdas and smartphones) that allow the collection of repeated assessments of several measures (predictors) that affect a target variable. Eating behavior studies can benefit from ema techniques by analysing almost real-time information regarding food intake and the related conditions and circumstances. In this paper, an ema method protocol to study eating behavior is presented along with the mobile application developed for this purpose. Mixed effects and vector autoregression are utilized for conducting a network analysis of the data collected and lead to inferring knowledge for the connectivity between different conditions and their effect on eating behavior.

This pilot study explored whether focusing on body functionality (i.e., everything the body can do) can protect women from potential harmful effects of exposure to thin-ideal images. Seventy women (Mage=20.61) completed an assignment wherein they either described the functionality of their body or the routes that they often travel (control). Afterward, participants were exposed to a series of thin-ideal images. Appearance and functionality satisfaction were measured before the assignment; appearance and functionality satisfaction, self-objectification, and body appreciation were measured after exposure. Results showed that participants who focused on body functionality experienced greater functionality satisfaction and body appreciation compared to control participants. Therefore, focusing on body functionality could be a beneficial individual-level technique that women can use to protect and promote a positive body image in the face of thin-ideal images. Research including a condition wherein participants are exposed to (product-only) control images is necessary to draw firmer conclusions.

Disgust is a core emotion that serves to protect one from engaging in activities that promote contamination and contracting disease. Since disgust is intimately connected to ingesting food, disgust sensitivity is probably also associated with dietary habits. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between obesity and disgust and between restraint and disgust. Participants (n = 135, all female) were recruited and tested via the Internet. They indicated their desire to eat high-calorie foods and filled Out several questionnaires assessing restrained eating and disgust sensitivity. We hypothesized that more restrained eaters would show increased disgust and that women with a higher BMI would show decreased disgust, which is what we found; that is, more restrained eaters showed increased core disgust and contamination disgust, whereas women with a higher BMI showed decreased core disgust and contamination disgust. Hence, feeling disgusted by food may be a strategy to uphold restraint, whereas relatively decreased disgust could encourage overeating. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Kunnen mensen verslaafd aan eten zijn? hoewel psychiaters en psychologen tal van verslavingen en eetstoornissen onderscheiden, hoort eetverslaving daar niet bij. Toch vinden veel mensen dat eetverslaving wel bestaat, en ook sommige wetenschappers zijn die mening toegedaan: het aantal wetenschappelijke artikelen over ‘food addiction’ is de afgelopen jaren flink toegenomen. Eetverslaving kan voortvloeien uit leerprocessen en lijkt te worden gefaciliteerd door een impulsieve persoonlijkheid en een specifieke genetische predispositie. Eetverslaving gaat vaak samen met obesitas en de eetbuistoornis. De behandeling van eetverslaving lijkt redelijk succesvol als het gaat om de reductie van het overeten, maar gewichtsverlies is moeilijk, vooral op de lange termijn. In dit artikel de stand van zaken.

Objectives: To determine whether sacral neuromodulation (SNM) for urinary symptoms or fecal incontinence gives improvement of female sexual function and whether improvement is due to physiological or psychological factors. Methods: Between 2002 and 2008, 8 patients had an array of questionnaires before and after SNM implantation. The questionnaires were: the Questionnaire for Screening for Sexual Dysfunctions, the Golombok Rust Inventory of Sexual Satisfaction, the Symptom Checklist-90, the Maudsley Marital Questionnaire and the McGill-Mah Orgasm Questionnaire. Three of these 8 patients underwent vaginal plethysmography before and after implantation. Results: No statistically significant changes were found, although there seems to be a trend toward improvement in orgasm scores. In plethysmography all 3 patients showed increased vaginal pulse amplitude with the stimulator turned on with both erotic and non-erotic stimuli. Conclusions: This study does not show a clear effect of SNM on sexual function, although there seems to be an improvement in orgasm scores. The lack of response on psychological questionnaires and the increase in vaginal pulse amplitude after SNM implantation indicate that there might be a physiological response.

RATIONALE: Previous research has demonstrated a role for impulsivity and perceived availability of the substance in cue-elicited craving. However, their effects on cue-elicited craving for alcohol are still ambiguous. Most important is that there has been no empirical evidence for the potential interaction of these factors on alcohol craving. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of response inhibition and perceived availability on cue-elicited craving for alcohol in social drinkers. METHODS: Participants were light to moderate social drinkers (N = 75) who were exposed to neutral- and alcohol-related stimuli during a single laboratory session. Response inhibition was assessed with the Stop Signal Task. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two perceived availability groups (n = 37, expecting alcohol; n = 38, not expecting alcohol). RESULTS: Overall craving for alcohol was higher in participants who expected alcohol than in those who did not. This finding was statistically significant only in the alcohol condition. Most important is that there was a significant interaction between response inhibition, perceived availability and time on cue-elicited craving. Regardless of the cue type, impulsive people who expected alcohol experience a significant increase in cue-elicited craving relative to impulsive people who did not expect alcohol. This effect was not observed in the non-impulsive groups. CONCLUSIONS: The results clearly show that perceived availability alone and in combination with response inhibition can modulate alcohol cue reactivity. Theoretical explanations and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Sensory-specific satiety (SSS) refers to a decrease in sensory pleasure derived from a specific food or drink with its consumption relative to the consumer's liking for the unconsumed foods and drinks. This satiety does not require any post-ingestive feedback, and yet it is an important factor in determining meal intake. SSS has not been found to be any weaker in obese people, but it might be the case that typically obese individuals rapidly recover from SSS. This hypothesis was examined in the present study, comparing 39 normal-weight women (mean ± SD body mass index (BMI) = 22.4 ± 2.2) and 45 obese women (BMI = 38.3 ± 4.8). Participants drank several servings of a test drink to induce SSS. Relative liking of the drink was determined before, directly after and 20 minutes after the repeated consumption of the test drink by means of subjective ratings for the pleasure of the taste, smell and mouth-feel of a test drink and a control drink. Relative liking for the test drink decreased in the normal-weight and obese women (indicative of SSS), but no suggestion of any recovery from SSS after the 20-minute interval was found for either group. There is no evidence to suggest that SSS and its recovery rate differs to any relevant degree between obese and normal-weight people.

Poor response inhibition has been associated with obesity, excessive food intake, and other consumptive behaviours, including alcohol use. However, the correlation between obesity and addictive behaviours like alcoholism is low: people who are obese appear to have a specific problem in restraining food intake. This would imply that obese people have more difficulties in inhibiting responses towards food, compared to other rewarding stimuli. In the present study eighty-nine children (ages 7-9) were tested with the stop signal task, in which responses towards food pictures or toy pictures had to be inhibited. Results showed that children were less effective in inhibiting responses towards food and percentage overweight predicted a lower ability to inhibit responses in general. When dichotomizing the sample in overweight and lean children, it appeared that overweight children were specifically less effective in inhibition towards food cues, compared to lean children. In conclusion: The results confirm weight related inhibitory problems and might explain the increased overeating to food cues in overweight children, as reported in the literature.

Appetitive learning has been demonstrated several times using neutral cues or contexts as a predictor of food intake and it has been shown that humans easily learn cued desires for foods. It has, however, never been studied whether internal cues are also capable of appetitive conditioning. In this study, we tested whether humans can learn cued eating desires to negative moods as conditioned stimuli (CS), thereby offering a potential explanation of emotional eating (EE). Female participants were randomly presented with 10 different stimuli eliciting either negative or neutral emotional states, with one of these states paired with eating chocolate. Expectancy to eat, desire to eat, salivation, and unpleasantness of experiencing negative emotions were assessed. After conditioning, participants were brought into a negative emotional state and were asked to choose between money and chocolate. Data showed differential conditioned responding on the expectancy and desire measures, but not on salivation. Specific conditioned effects were obtained for participants with a higher BMI (body mass index) on the choice task, and for participants high on EE on the unpleasantness ratings. These findings provide the first experimental evidence for the idea that negative emotions can act as conditioned stimuli, and might suggest that classical conditioning is involved in EE.

Poor inhibitory control may contribute to the maintenance of binge eating (BE) among overweight and obese individuals. However, it is unknown whether deficits are general or specific to food (versus other attractive non-food stimuli), or whether observed deficits are attributable to increased depressive symptoms in BE groups. In the current study, we hypothesized that individuals with BE would display inhibitory control deficits, with more pronounced deficits occurring when food stimuli were used. Overweight or obese participants with (n = 25) and without (n = 65) BE completed a Stop Signal Task (SST) with distinct task blocks featuring food-specific stimuli, positive non-food stimuli, or neutral stimuli. The BE group exhibited poorer inhibitory control across SST stimuli types (p = .003, eta(2)(p) = .10), but deficits did not differ by stimuli type (p = .68, eta(2)(p)

We report results from three experimental studies that investigated the independence of approach and avoidance motivational orientations for alcohol, both of which operate within controlled and automatic cognitive processes. In order to prime their approach or avoidance motivational orientations, participants watched brief videos, the content of which (positive or negative depictions of alcohol, or neutral) varied by experimental group. Immediately after watching the videos, participants completed self-report (Approach and Avoidance of Alcohol Questionnaire; all studies) and implicit (visual probe task in study 1, stimulus-response compatibility task in studies 2 and 3) measures of alcohol-related approach and avoidance. In study 3, we incorporated an additional experimental manipulation of thought suppression in an attempt to maximize the influence of the videos on implicit measures. Findings were consistent across all three studies: increases in self-reported approach inclinations were mirrored by decreases in avoidance inclinations, and vice versa. However, a combined analysis of data from all studies demonstrated that changes in approach inclinations were partially independent of changes in avoidance inclinations. There were no effects on implicit alcohol-related processing biases, although methodological issues may partially account for these findings. Our findings demonstrate that subjective approach and avoidance inclinations for alcohol tend to fluctuate in parallel, but changes in approach inclinations may be partially independent from changes in avoidance inclinations. We discuss methodological issues that may partially account for our findings.

Background: While the automatic processing of alcohol-related cues by alcohol abusers is well established in experimental psychopathology approaches, the cerebral regions involved in this phenomenon and the influence of alcohol intake on this process remain unknown. The aim of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of task-irrelevant alcohol-related stimuli in young heavy drinkers and their modulation by alcohol administration.Methods: Twelve heavy drinking male participants were scanned on 2 separate days; once after a low dose of alcohol intake (0.4 g/kg), and once after a placebo intake, in balanced order. Images of alcoholic drinks, soft drinks, or neutral objects were shown while participants' neural activity was recorded through fMRI. Moreover, participants' attentional focus was manipulated using a task which required them to process the central images of interest (focus alcohol condition) or a center unattended task (focus not on alcohol condition).Results: Results indicated that an explicit judgment on beverage-related cues increased activation in the prefrontal area compared with the judgment of neutral objects. By comparison with that of task-irrelevant neutral cues, the processing of task-irrelevant alcohol-related cues increased the activation in a large network of cerebral areas including visual and temporal regions, the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the putamen. Moreover, in the condition with focus not on alcohol, the ventral tegmental area (VTA) was particularly activated by the presentation of (task-irrelevant) alcohol-related cues compared to task-irrelevant soft-drink-related cues.Conclusions: The VTA was especially involved in the automatic processing of alcohol-related cues in young heavy drinkers. Low dose of alcohol did not modulate the neural substrates involved in the processing of salient alcohol-related cues.

Overweight children appear to be more responsive to environmental, hedonic cues and easily overeat in the current obesogenic environment. They are also found to overeat in the absence of hunger, and this overeating seems related to impulsivity: impulsive participants are more prone to external eating. However, some studies showed that impulsive adults are also more prone to hunger cues: impulsive participants overate especially when feeling hungry. This would mean impulsive people are more reactive to both external and internal cues. The overeating was limited to palatable high energy-dense foods: hunger made them fancy a snack. In the current study, we wanted to test the interaction between impulsivity, hunger and consumption of food type in children. Impulsivity was measured in 88 children between the ages of 7 and 9. Next, half of the participants performed a taste test before their own regular lunch and half of the participants immediately after their lunch. During the taste test, low, medium and high energy-dense food items were presented. Results showed that impulsive children ate more high energy-dense foods than low impulsive children, both before and after their lunch. No differences were found on low or medium energy-dense foods. Impulsive children therefore showed normal sensitivity for internal hunger and satiety cues, but abnormal response to high energy-dense foods. This might render them vulnerable to tasty temptation in the environment and to weight gain in their future.

On a daily basis, men and women are confronted with numerous messages concerning the importance of their physical appearance. These pressures can then contribute to a negative body image. Jessica Alleva describes how these pressures can be counteracted by focusing not on how the body looks, but what it can do, and explores how this shift can lead to a much healthier body image