Flinders University, Australia.
Appetite. 2010 Aug;55(1):44-8. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2010.03.010. Epub 2010 Mar 20.
The present study aimed to extend previous research into cognitive impairments as a consequence of food craving. In particular, the study examined the impact of chocolate craving on the three components of working memory: the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the central executive, assessed by the digit span, Corsi blocks, and the double span tasks, respectively. A sample of 96 female undergraduate students was randomly assigned to a craving or control condition. Participants in the craving condition abstained from eating chocolate for 24h prior to testing, and performed the cognitive tasks in the presence of chocolate, a manipulation that successfully elicited chocolate cravings. As predicted on the basis of the visual imagery nature of food cravings, participants in the craving condition performed more poorly on the Corsi blocks task than control participants, but the groups did not differ on the digit span or double span measures. These results indicate that chocolate cravings selectively disrupt performance on visuospatial tasks. According to the working memory model, this occurs because food cravings compete for limited visuospatial working memory resources. These findings have practical implications in that visuospatial memory plays an important role in many everyday behaviours.
本研究旨在扩展先前关于食物渴望导致认知障碍的研究。具体来说，该研究考察了巧克力渴望对工作记忆三个组成部分的影响：分别通过数字跨度、科萨方块和双跨度任务评估的语音回路、视空间画板和中央执行。一个由 96 名女性本科大学生组成的样本被随机分配到渴望或控制条件。渴望条件的参与者在测试前 24 小时内禁食巧克力，并在巧克力存在的情况下完成认知任务，这种操作成功地引起了巧克力渴望。根据食物渴望的视觉意象性质的预测，渴望条件的参与者在科萨方块任务上的表现比对照组差，但在数字跨度或双跨度测量上没有差异。这些结果表明，巧克力渴望会选择性地破坏空间任务的表现。根据工作记忆模型，这是因为食物渴望争夺有限的空间工作记忆资源。这些发现具有实际意义，因为空间记忆在许多日常行为中起着重要作用。
