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Updated: Jan 27, 2026

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans
Published on: March 19, 2014
Neurophysiological Effects Associated With Subliminal Conditioning of Appetite Motivations
Micah Amd1,2,3, Sylvain Baillet1
1McConnell Brain Imaging Center, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Abstract:
When attempting to encourage eating, explicitly providing statements like "eating is pleasant" may produce little effect. This may be due to subjective, negatively-valenced narratives evoked by perception of the verb "eating" (e.g., eating →fat →lonely), overriding any explicitly provided eating-pleasant valence information. In our study, we presented eating-related verbs under subliminal visual conditions to mitigate the onset of eating-associated deliberation. Verbs were linked with neutral or positively valenced terms across independent blocks. Modulations of event-related magnetoencephalographic (MEG) components and parietal activations in the alpha range (8-12 Hz) illustrated a significant effect of valence during pre-lexical time windows. We found significantly greater saliva production and declarations of increasing hunger after eating-related verbs were linked with positive terms. Orally reported preferences did not vary between conditions.
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