Marketing of Agricultural and Food Products, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, University of Göttingen, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 5, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.
Nutrients. 2020 Dec 21;12(12):3903. doi: 10.3390/nu12123903.
In the global attempt to combat rising obesity rates, the introduction of health warning messages on food products is discussed as one possible approach. However, the perception of graphical health warning messages in the food context and the possible impact that they may have, in particular at the neuronal level, have hardly been studied. Therefore, the aim of this explorative study was to examine consumers' reactions (measured as neuronal activity and subjective reporting) of two different types of graphical health warning messages on sweets compared to sweets without warning messages. One type used the red road traffic stop sign as graphical information ("Stop"), while the other one used shocking pictures ("Shock"), an approach similar to the images on cigarette packages. The neural response of 78 participants was examined with the neuroimaging technique functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Different hemodynamic responses in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the frontopolar cortex (FOC), and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) were observed, regions which are associated with reward evaluation, social behavior consequences, and self-control. Further, the health warning messages were actively and emotionally remembered by the participants. These findings point to an interesting health information strategy, which should be explored and discussed further.
在全球努力应对肥胖率上升的过程中，人们讨论了在食品产品上引入健康警示信息作为一种可能的方法。然而，食品背景下对图形健康警示信息的感知以及它们可能产生的影响（特别是在神经元水平上）几乎没有得到研究。因此，本探索性研究的目的是检验消费者对两种不同类型的图形健康警示信息（一种是红色的道路交通停止标志，另一种是令人震惊的图片）在糖果上的反应（通过神经元活动和主观报告来衡量），与香烟包装上的图片类似。78 名参与者的神经反应使用功能近红外光谱 (fNIRS) 神经影像学技术进行了检测。观察到眶额皮层 (OFC)、额极皮层 (FOC) 和背外侧前额叶皮层 (dlPFC) 中不同的血液动力学反应，这些区域与奖励评估、社会行为后果和自我控制有关。此外，参与者积极且情绪化地记住了这些健康警示信息。这些发现表明了一种有趣的健康信息策略，值得进一步探讨和讨论。
