I can’t help but think of cartoons when it comes to the machinations of the human imagination when a person is hungry. I think of the classic image of two starving guys wandering the desert, and one suddenly sees his buddy as a giant roast turkey just begging for a bite. According to new research out of New Zealand, that gag might not be so far off.
As reported in the journal Appetite, researchers at the University of Otago found that hungry people found it rather quick and easy to imagine vivid mental images of food flavors compared to full people. This means that hunger doesn’t just make you want food, but it sharpens the way your brain imagines the eventual experience of eating it. Hunger so intense that you can practically taste the food before you’ve taken a bite.
In the experiment, 64 participants completed two different sessions. In one, they fasted overnight, and in another, they ate breakfast. Then, they were shown pictures of foods like donuts, chocolate, chips, and apples, and were asked to imagine either the flavor or the texture. When hungry, the study participants reported that they could imagine the taste and smell of the food way more vividly, and it came to mind much more quickly.
It Might Have Something to Do With the Brain’s Reward Systems
The researchers found that the hungry participants were more likely to mentally simulate the act of chewing and the experience of tasting, instead of just passively imagining the food.
What’s interesting is that this effect only applied to flavor. Both hungry and not hungry people were able to imagine textures like chewiness and crunchiness. Researchers think this might have something to do with the brain’s reward systems for taste and smell, which become more sensitive when the body needs fuel.
Another experiment tested whether imagining food as vividly as one could was enough to make a craving go away, a concept called “imagined satiation.” It turns out, yeah, imagining the taste of a delicious cookie does decrease enjoyment after a while, but actual enjoyment of the food didn’t change.
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