030-23 – No evidence for goal priming or sensory specific satiety effects following exposure to ambient food odours

Background: Sensory specific satiety (SSS) describes a decline in the hedonic value of a food as it is eaten relative to a food that has not been eaten. Implicit wanting of the consumed food has also been shown to decline. Several studies have reported that brief exposure to food odours can also produce a SSS effect, in the absence of consumption, selectively reducing hedonic ratings and subsequent high calorie food choices. In contrast, other studies have reported goal priming effects of ambient odours. Aim: The aim of the present study was to determine whether exposure to ambient food odours would selectively reduce implicit motivation for associated foods. Methods: Participants took part in either an ambient odour (N=40) or food consumption (N=39) study. They were randomly assigned to an indulgent (chocolate) or non-indulgent (orange) food group and completed two blocks of an incentive-force task. One block was completed immediately before and the other immediately after odour exposure/food consumption. A grip-force transducer was used to measure effort exerted effort to win food prizes. The prizes were depicted in visual images presented at both conscious (200ms) and non-conscious (33ms) levels. Results: In both studies, greater effort was initially exerted to win the indulgent than the non-indulgent food. While no significant satiety or priming effect was found following ambient odour exposure, a classic sensory specific satiety effect was found in the food consumption experiment. That is, force exerted for chocolate images declined significantly following chocolate consumption, in the absence of any decline in grip exerted for orange stimuli. Conclusion: Using an implicit measure of incentive motivation, we found no evidence of either ambient odour induced sensory specific satiety or goal priming effects. While this could be explained by factors such as odour concentration, timing, and nature of exposure, it raises questions about the robustness of previously