Less distracted, more restrained: Attentional differences on the rapid serial visual presentation task in restrained eaters to food words and pictures

Restrained eaters (RE) are individuals that regularly show disinhibited food intake despite attempts of cognitive dietary restraint. This disinhibition is often attributed to an abundance of food cues in the environment that repeatedly draw attention, although the literature remains ambiguous. One source of ambiguity is the influence of different food cue modalities (pictures, words) on attentional processes. The current study therefore investigates the effect different modalities have on attentional bias to food cues in RE (n = 70) compared to unrestrained eaters (URE; n = 74). After a standardized lunch, participants completed a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation task with concurrent electroencephalography. Trials consisted of streams of pictures or words, with task-irrelevant food and animal distractors at lag 2 before an animal target appeared. Model comparisons indicated a significant Group × Distractor Type interaction. Specifically, RE were more accurate at identifying targets that were preceded by food compared to animal stimuli than URE. Exploratory analyses indicated that this was especially due to food pictures. This finding was not accompanied by changes in event related potentials. Furthermore, we found a significant Modality × Distractor Type interaction. In the picture, but not in the word condition, participants correctly identified targets preceded by a food distractor more often than when preceded by an animal distractor. This finding was accompanied by an increased P300 after food cues. In all, we showed that RE more effectively ignore food cues, especially in the image condition. This contributes to a body of research that demonstrates increased inhibitory control over food cues in RE. Future studies have to determine under which conditions inhibition of food cues is successful in RE.