Oct 13, 2020 06:00:00

Research shows that the higher the calorie food, the easier it is for the brain to remember where to put it.

When you're hungry and want to eat something, many people think of high-calorie foods like sweets and junk food over low-calorie foods at home. .. Studies suggest that this phenomenon may be due to the higher calorie foods, the easier it is to remember 'where they are located.'

Human spatial memory implicitly prioritizes high-calorie foods | Scientific Reports

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72570-x

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https://www.sciencealert.com/our-brains-remember-where-we-left-junk-food-easier-than-healthy-food

A study on spatial cognition and foods conducted by a research team at the Faculty of Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University in the Netherlands, revealed that higher calorie foods are easier to remember in human spatial cognition. I am.

In the experiment, we prepared a route in which high-calorie foods and low-calorie foods were randomly arranged as shown below. Subjects memorize the order and position of foods through a slightly complicated route, such as 1 Caramel, 2 Apple, 3 Chocolate, 4 Tomato, and so on. I will. Subjects were divided into a food-eating group and a sniffing group in the order of the route.

After following the route, the subject will perform a memory confirmation test to see in what order and in what position each food was located. As a result, the percentage of remembering the position of high-calorie foods such as caramel and chocolate was higher than that of low-calorie foods such as apples and tomatoes, and the same tendency was seen in both the eating group and the smelling group. ..

In nature, it is common for animals to behave according to the '

optimal foraging theory, ' which seeks to obtain more calorie-rich foods at lower cost. The research team speculated that the results of this study are also likely to be a phenomenon that the human brain unknowingly caused by the optimal foraging theory.

In addition to this study, a 2013 study of 41 women found that high-calorie snacks were easier to remember than images of fruits and vegetables. .. In addition, a study conducted in 2018 showed that photos of high-calorie foods are easier to remember than photos of low-calorie foods, suggesting that the higher the calories, the easier it is for the brain to remember. It has been.

'If the optimal foraging theory proves to apply to humans, we may be able to identify why eating a healthy diet is difficult in modern society,' the research team said.