Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, New York 14214-3000, United States.
Eat Behav. 2010 Apr;11(2):67-73. doi: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2009.09.006. Epub 2009 Sep 27.
Behavioral choice theory and laboratory choice paradigms can provide a framework to understand the reinforcing efficacy or reinforcing value of food. Reinforcing efficacy is measured in the laboratory by assessing how much effort one will engage in to gain access to food as the amount of work progressively increases. However, this method to establish demand curves as estimates of reinforcer efficacy is time consuming and limits the number of reinforcers that can be tested. The general aim of this study was to compare the reinforcing efficacy of snack foods using a behavioral task that requires subjects to respond to gain access to portions of food (LAB task) with a questionnaire version of a purchasing task designed to determine demand curves (QUES task) in nonobese and obese adults (n=24). Results showed correlations between the maximal amount of money that individuals were willing to spend for food (QUES O(max)) and the maximal amount of responses made on the highest reinforcement schedule completed (LAB O(max)) (r=0.45, p<0.05), and between BMI and the LAB O(max) (r=0.43, p<0.05) and the QUES O(max) (r=0.52, p<0.05). The study suggests the questionnaire provides valid measures of reinforcing efficacy that can be used in place of or in conjunction with traditional laboratory paradigms to establish demand curves that describe the behavioral maintaining properties of food.
行为选择理论和实验室选择范式可以为理解食物的强化效力或强化价值提供框架。强化效力在实验室中通过评估一个人在逐步增加工作量的情况下为获得食物而投入的努力程度来衡量。然而，这种方法建立需求曲线作为强化效力的估计是耗时的，并且限制了可以测试的强化物的数量。本研究的一般目的是比较使用需要受试者通过响应获得食物部分的行为任务（LAB 任务）和旨在确定需求曲线的购买任务的问卷版本（QUES 任务）来确定零食的强化效力，该任务针对非肥胖和肥胖成年人（n=24）。结果表明，个体愿意为食物花费的最大金额（QUES O(max)）与完成的最高强化计划中做出的最大响应数量（LAB O(max)）之间存在相关性（r=0.45，p<0.05），以及体重指数与 LAB O(max)（r=0.43，p<0.05）和 QUES O(max)（r=0.52，p<0.05）之间存在相关性。该研究表明，问卷提供了有效的强化效力测量，可以替代或与传统的实验室范式结合使用，以建立描述食物行为维持特性的需求曲线。
