Cognitive influences on food intake: the effects of manipulating memory for recent eating

Recent evidence suggests that enhancing memory of the last meal decreases later snack intake, whereas disruption of encoding in memory of the last meal increases subsequent snack intake. Other studies have found that manipulating cognitions at the time of eating, such as beliefs about the timing and composition of meals, can affect subsequent intake. The effects of many of these cognitions are likely to depend on prior association in memory between situational and sensory cues and particular postingestional or affective consequences of eating. Hence, memory for the specific attributes of foods eaten in the recent past, and memory for the predicted consequences of eating acquired over repeated experiences are important influences on food intake. These data are consistent with evidence of hyperphagia in amnesic patients and laboratory animals with lesions to the hippocampus, an important substrate for learning and memory.