How about lunch? Consequences of the meal context on cognition and emotion

Abstract

Although research addresses the effects of a meal's context on food preference, the psychological consequences of meal situations are largely unexplored. We compared the cognitive and emotional effects of a restaurant meal eaten in the company of others to a solitary meal consumed in a plain office using pre- and post-tests analysis and controlling for the kind and amount of food consumed. Three tasks were conducted, measuring: (1) semantic memory (2) cognitive control and error monitoring, and (3) processing of emotional facial expressions. Covert processes in these tasks were assessed with event-related brain potentials. A mood rating questionnaire indicated a relaxation effect of the restaurant as compared to the plain meal situation. The restaurant meal increased sensitivity to threatening facial expressions and diminished cognitive control and error monitoring. No effects were observed for semantic memory. These findings provide the first experimental evidence that a restaurant meal with a social component may be more relaxing than a meal eaten alone in a plain setting and may reduce cognitive control.

Figure 1. ERPs from the semantic memory task at electrode Cz, superimposed for primed and unprimed target words in the pre-meal (left panel) and post-meal sessions (right panel) and for the Experimental and Control Group (top vs. bottom panels).

Also shown are scalp topographies of the difference waves between ERPs to semantically unrelated and related targets words, displaying the distribution of the N400 in the time window 350 – 600 ms.

Figure 2. Response-synchronized ERPs from the Simon task.

Left panel: ERPs at electrode Cz, superimposed for correct and incorrect (corr., incorr.) responses and pre-meal and post-meal sessions (S1, S2) and for the Experimental and Control group. Topographies of the Ne as the difference between incorrect and correct responses are depicted to the right of the waveforms. Right panel: Same as left panel but for electrode Pz (please note changes in voltage and time scales). Topographies of error positivities (350-550 ms) are shown to the right of the waveforms.

Figure 3. ERPs from the gender decision task at electrode P8, superimposed for the three facial expressions (angry, neutral, happy) in pre-meal and post-meal sessions and for the Experimental and Control group.

Embedded heads depict scalp topographies of the difference waves between ERPs to angry and neutral facial expressions for the time range 160 to 180 ms.