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Updated: Oct 12, 2025

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans
Published on: March 19, 2014
Augmenting salivation, but not evaluations, through subliminal conditioning of eating-related words
Denise A Passarelli1, Micah Amd2, Marlon A de Oliveira1
1Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil.
Abstract:
Correlating eating-related words (CS) with positively valenced words (US+) may augment eating-associated motivational responses (e.g., preingestive salivation) with minimal CS knowledge. We tested this claim using a subliminal conditioning procedure, where CS and US were presented under subliminal and supraliminal visual conditions. Three groups of Brazilian undergraduates (N = 69) viewed eating-related words (CS) or their scrambled counterparts (non-CS) followed by positive (US+) or neutral (US-) words. A free-selection visibility check confirmed that subliminally presented CS and non-CS had not been detected by any group. Participants exposed to CS/US+ pairings produced significantly more saliva relative to participants exposed to CS/US- and non-CS/US+ pairings. Reliable induction of salivation, coupled with null outcomes across evaluation measures, suggests that affective information related to eating can subliminally augment preingestive salivation with minimal deliberation.
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