Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 15, 2026

A Procedure to Study the Effect of Prolonged Food Restriction on Heroin Seeking in Abstinent Rats
Published on: November 11, 2013
Dietary restraint and addictive behaviors: the generalizability of Tiffany's cue reactivity model
M W Green1, P J Rogers, N A Elliman
1Department of Consumer Sciences, Institute of Food Research, Earley Gate, Whiteknights Road, Reading, RG6 6BZ, United Kingdom. Michael.W.Green@unilever.com
Unlabelled:
Two studies are presented, which examine cue reactivity in dieting.
Methods:
Experiment 1 investigated whether the presence of a preferred food affected dieters' performance on measures of attention, reaction time, and motor speed. The manipulation did not affect the performance. Experiment 2 investigated the performance of dieters (N = 19), highly restrained non-dieters (N = 18) and low-to-medium restrained eaters (N = 34) on two simple reaction time tasks. Subjects were either required to imagine their favorite food or to imagine their favorite holiday while completing a reaction time task.
Results:
In the food condition, both dieters and restrained nondieters displayed significantly slower reaction times during the first three of five blocks of the task than the low-to-medium restrained eaters.
Conclusions:
The results are discussed in terms of Tiffany's (Psychological Review 97:147-168, 1990) model of cue reactivity in that different abstinent states produce comparable effects upon performance.
Related Concept Videos
Drug Dependence
Drug Abuse and Addiction: Pharmacological Phenomena
CNS Depressants: Alcohol and Nicotine
Substance Use Disorders Affecting Sleep
Understanding the concepts of physical dependence,...
Binge Eating Disorders
Self-Regulation

