Psychology 101 Research Paper

Mittal, D. (2010). Snacking While Watching TV Impairs Food Recall and Promotes Food Intake on a Later TV Free Test Meal. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 871-877. doi: 10.1002/acp.1760

Have you ever sat in front of the TV devouring tons of snacks and not even paid attention to how much you had already eaten? That is why this essay sparked my attention! I constantly find myself in front of the TV craving snacks and chomping away, not even thinking about how much I am eating. Dolly Mittal, Richard J. Stevenson, Megan J. Oaten, and Laurie A. Miller conducted an experiment to find out if our memory is a factor for what we’ve already eaten. One amnesiac patient HM started this idea when he sat down to eat a second meal immediately after consuming
They are given chocolate balls, pringles, coca cola, and orange juice. Half of these ladies did it watching a 20 minute TV episode and the other half did it sitting quietly. Afterwards the remains were taken and measured; both groups consumed around the same amount of snacks. Around one hour later they sat the ladies down to eat lunch which would include: sandwiches, biscuits, crackers and dip. They found the result they were looking for when the women who had watched TV earlier while snacking ate more of this meal than the ladies who had earlier snacked without the TV. The result was finale when the TV group also couldn’t remember how much they had snacked on during the time they watched the
In the journal it is mentioned that men take a different approach to this and try to eat as much food as possible, yet in the beginning the amnesiac patient HM that Hebben reported was a male.

I didn’t like that the women fasted before they came to do the experiment. It is not a real life situation. Most of the time when I’m snacking in front of the TV I might have already eaten before that or I am just about to eat. Also If I knew that this experiment was all about food – I do not know if I would have eaten what I normally do. I might have been embarrassed and not given correct information. There is no way to make this experiment work 100% but that is how it is with most experiments.

They conclude ”Our data suggest that TV probably exerts some as yet unspecified effect on participants’ ability to recall earlier bouts of food consumption, leading to over consumption on a later TV free test meal. As TV viewing is associated with eating in so many different ways and as over consumption of food is a major problem in most industrialized nations, it would seem important to study exactly how this occurs.