Perception and visual clues – food

Lopez, Choi, Dellawar, Cullen, Contreras, Rosenfeld, and Tomiyama’s report that “Satiation can play a role in regulating eating behavior, but research suggests visual cues may be just as important. In a seminal study by Wansink et al. (2005), researchers used self-refilling bowls to assess how visual cues of portion size would influence intake. The study found that participants who unknowingly ate from self-refilling bowls ate more soup than did participants eating from normal (not self-refilling) bowls. Despite consuming 73% more soup, however, participants in the self-refilling condition did not believe they had consumed more soup, nor did they perceive themselves as more satiated than did participants eating from normal bowls. . . .  We found that most results [of the Wansink-lead study] replicated. . .  results suggest that eating can be strongly controlled by visual cues, which can even override satiation.”

Alejandra Lopez, Alyssa Choi, Nadia Dellawar, Brooke Cullen, Sonia Contreras, Daniel Rosenfeld, and A. Tomiyama.  “Visual Cues and Food Intake:  A Preregistered Replication of Wansink et al. (2005).”  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, in press, https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001503