The Development and Validation of the Food Memory Bias Test for a Large-Scale Epidemiological Study in a Multiethnic...

Memory influences decision-making regarding eating behaviour. However, marketing utilises our memory to exploit our consumptive habits. Whether we have an inherent bias towards memorising visual cues associated with high-calorie foods and how such bias contributes to our health outcomes remains to be determined. We therefore aimed to develop and validate a computerized, image-based Food Memory Bias Task (FMBT) for use in multiethnic Asian populations.

In the development phase involving 172 participants, 91.9% rated the instrument as user-friendly and we optimised the instrument format into 12 visual food cues and 30-min delay period to avoid a ceiling effect. In the validation phase involving 184 multi-ethnic Asian participants (49.3 (14.5) years old, 44.6% male, 71.7% Chinese), FMBT memory score was associated with the brief assessment of cognition memory (β(p) = 0.23 (5.1 × 10^-6)), and general cognition score 'g' (β(p) = 0.30 (6.5 × 10^-9)).

Higher memory bias was associated with lower memory score in the low-calorie bias group (r=-0.33, p=0.002), but not in the hig h-calorie bias group. In this present study, despite randomly administering two versions of the test across visits, the FMBT bias score demonstrates a significant learning effect and low reproducibility (r(p) = -0.14 (0.11) across visits). Food memory bias score is associated with higher food approach traits according to the Adult-Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (β(p) = 0.23(0.015)), independent of age, sex, and ethnicity.

FMBT provides an opportunity to address epidemiological questions on how food memory bias influences dietary habit and cardiometabolic health, and how it is in turn shaped by our built environment.