EL PROCESO DE COMUNICACIÓN DE LOS GRUPOS TERRORISTAS

In support of Restraint Theory and the boundary model, research has found that restrained eaters are more susceptible to inattentive eating when compared to unrestrained eaters. Ward & Mann (2000) gave participants access to high calorie food while they

completed a simple reaction time task (responding to a beep which sounded periodically), but participants assigned to the distraction condition were additionally instructed to

simultaneously memorise a series of images (artistic paintings) in preparation for a memory test. Restrained eaters consumed significantly more food in the distraction condition

compared to the no distraction condition. Unrestrained eaters showed the opposite effect. A similar study was conducted with restrained eaters only, who were given a milkshake to taste while remembering a one digit (no distraction) or nine digit (distraction) number to remember (Mann & Ward, 2004). Again, consumption was higher in the distraction condition compared to the no distraction condition — although this effect was eliminated when dieting goals were made salient by asking participants to complete the restraint scale (Dutch eating behaviour questionnaire version) before the experiment. The authors in both studies (Ward & Mann, 2000; Mann & Ward, 2004) concluded that the task distracted participants away from monitoring their dieting goals. Other researchers have also argued that maintenance of dieting goals requires attention (Hofmann, Gschwendner, Friese, Wiers

& Schmitt, 2008). However, direct experimental evidence which has specifically

manipulated attention while keeping other aspects of cognition constant has been lacking.

For example, Ward & Mann’s (2000) distraction condition was not necessarily a controlled manipulation of attention, as it also involved keeping multiple images in short-term

memory. As will be outlined in Section 1.5, attention is not thought to be a unitary construct in the context of perceptual load theory. While working memory manipulations affect attention, they are argued to influence a different aspect of attention to perceptual manipulations. In addition, in Ward & Mann’s (2000) study, looking at artistic images was also likely to be more engaging and enjoyable than looking at a blank screen and waiting for a beep.

Bellisle and Dalix (2001) used an audio story as a distraction condition, compared to a no task baseline and a focused attention (an audio recording focusing on the sensory characteristics of the food) condition. Participants consumed significantly more when distracted compared to baseline. The focused attention manipulation had no effect. In addition, within the distraction condition, intake was strongly and positively correlated with dietary restraint (TFEQ): for each additional point on the restraint scale, participants

consumed an additional 50 calories. However, this relationship was not found in a replication study by the same authors (Bellisle, Dalix, & Slama, 2004). Therefore, while there has been some support that being distracted while eating specifically affects restrained eaters compared to unrestrained eaters, not all studies have found this effect. This suggests that the Restraint Theory approach may not be a sufficient explanation for all inattentive eating.

Boon, Stroebe, Schut, & Ijntema (2002) suggested and tested a modified model of inattentive eating in restrained eaters. The idea was derived from Wegners’s ironic process theory, which predicted that attempts to control mental processes caused ironic rebound effects due to limitations in cognitive capacity. Similarly, Boon et al., (2002) predicted that a cognitively demanding distraction task should result in an ironic ‘rebound’ effect of overeating in restrained but not unrestrained eaters. This effect was predicted to be more pronounced in restrained eaters as their cognitive capacity might be limited by maintaining dieting goals, and therefore they would be unable to maintain focus on both dieting goals and the demanding task. This was tested by presenting participants with ice cream that was perceived to be either ‘extra creamy’ or ‘30% lower in calories’, while they either listened to a radio conversation (which they had to monitor so they could later answer questions

about its content) or sat in a quiet room. When distracted by the radio, restrained eaters consumed significantly more of the perceived high calorie ice cream (and not the perceived low calorie version) than unrestrained eaters. However, the theoretical predictions were only partially supported, as both restrained and unrestrained eaters both consumed more food when distracted. Several explanations were put forward in an attempt to explain the general inattentive eating effect, including slowed down habituation to food cues and the possibility of unrestrained eaters also relying on cognitive diet boundaries (like those described by the Boundary model—see section 1.4). However, no firm conclusions were drawn.

There has since been a multitude of studies showing a general inattentive eating effect across individuals (Robinson et al., 2013). Recent research has started to investigate the potential mechanisms (Braude & Stevenson, 2014). While dietary restraint has a large impact, a variety of other factors help determine food intake at any given meal. For example, the sensory characteristics of the food (e.g, Mccrickerd et al., 2014), palatability (e.g., Johnson & Wardle, 2014; Sørensen, Møller, Flint, Martens, & Raben, 2003), variety of flavour (e.g., Hetherington, Foster, Newman, Anderson, & Norton, 2006; Martin, 2016), previous expectations about aspects of the food (e.g., Mccrickerd et al., 2014) and

interoceptive cues (e.g., Simmons & DeVille, 2017) have all been shown to affect intake when attentional resources are available. Theoretically, being unable to pay attention to any one of these factors could influence intake. Therefore, one way of isolating the mechanisms of inattentive eating is to incorporate an inattentive eating task into a paradigm that

manipulates the factor of interest. In this thesis, I choose to focus on whether distraction

would disrupt the processes of flavour perception and satiety in determining meal intake, which will be outlined in the following sections.