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Though health goal priming has proven to be an effective communication intervention for stimulating healthy food choices, it is unknown through which neural mechanisms it impacts choice. We developed and validated a virtual supermarket paradigm and employed it to assess the neurocognitive drivers of health goal priming. The validation study showed that the Presence of the paradigm was excellent. In the fMRI study participants chose between healthy and unhealthy foods while brain activation was measured. Choices were preceded by health, hedonic, or control primes. No main effect of prime on choice or brain activation was found. However, those participants in which the health goal prime was more effective in promoting healthy choices had stronger activation in brain areas involved in self-control. To conclude, we validated a novel virtual supermarket with which we demonstrated that health goal priming might be effective in changing food choice through triggering neural self-control mechanisms.
Nynke van der Laan, University of Amsterdam / ASCoR
Esther K. Papies, U of Glasgow
Angelique Ly, U Medical Center Utrecht
Paul A.M. Smeets, U Medical Center Utrecht/Wageningen U and Research