Visual food cue associated reward in obesity using eye tracking

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  The use of eye-tracking technology to assess the visual food cue associated reward in obesity during varying stages of intervention.

• IRAS ID

  171472

• Contact name

  Hajra Ashraf

• Contact email

  h.ashraf@imperial.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Imperial College London

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 0 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  Perception of food is a key factor in the decision making process of what we eat. As such, this project will be investigating the link between visual food cues and the resulting decision process of what we choose to eat. We hypothesise that there is an altered visual food-cue associated reward in overweight/obese individuals. We are aiming to use eye-tracking methodology to identify behavioural responses to visual food cues and compare results between patients before and after treatment for obesity. We are hoping to use this data to formulate a behavioural therapy aimed at weight reduction.
  We aim to test this hypothesis with various tasks making up the study. The tasks are briefly outlined below:
  Task 1: Obese and Non-Obese participants will be asked to eat a plate of food whilst their gaze behaviour is tracked
  Task 2:Obese and Non-Obese participants will be asked to choose food from a menu whilst their gaze behaviour is tracked
  Task 3: Obese and Non-Obese participants will be asked to choose items to purchase at a supermarket whilst their gaze behaviour is tracked

• REC name

  South West - Cornwall & Plymouth Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  15/SW/0356

• Date of REC Opinion

  12 Apr 2016

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion