Helpless against food cues: the influence of pro- and anti-sugar videos on instrumental food-seeking behaviour in a Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer paradigm

Objective External food cues can trigger food seeking by means of associative Stimulus-Outcome-Response learning mechanisms. These mechanisms can contribute to cued overeating. The present study aims at investigating if (cued) food-seeking behaviour can be influenced by pro- and anti-sugar videos. Design Participants (N = 81) completed a Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) task: in an instrumental training, they learned associations between button presses and resulting sugary or sugar-free snacks. In a subsequent Pavlovian training, the snacks were paired with different cues. During the following transfer test, participants performed free button presses to win snacks while the cues were present or not. Main outcome measures The number of button presses for the different snacks in the transfer test was analysed. Results We observed an outcome specific PIT effect, i.e. higher response rates for cued snacks. The videos did not affect the PIT effect. However, exploratory analyses revealed that the anti-sugar video led to fewer button presses for sugary snacks (compared to the pro-sugar video). Conclusion While snack-seeking behaviour was unaffected by the video's messages in the presence of food cues, in the absence of food cues there was evidence for a reduction of sugary snack choices by the anti-sugar video.