What Causes Humans to Begin and End a Meal? A Role for Memory for What Has Been Eaten, as Evidenced by a Study of Multiple Meal Eating in Amnesic Patients
Rozin and colleagues asked what actually tells a person a meal is over, and tested the answer with two patients whose amnesia was so severe they could not retain events for more than about a minute, and in particular could not remember having just eaten. Each was offered a second lunch ten to thirty minutes after finishing the first, on three separate occasions, and each readily ate it. Offered a third meal after the second, they usually began that too. Since their stomachs had received the food even though their memories had not, the study separates the physical signals of fullness from the memory of having eaten, and shows the memory doing a great deal of the work. The authors propose that knowing you have had what counts culturally as a complete meal may be sufficient reason to refuse more food. Two patients is a very small sample, and the demonstration is nonetheless difficult to explain any other way.
Rozin and colleagues asked what actually tells a person a meal is over, and tested the answer with two patients whose amnesia was so severe they could not retain events for more than about a minute, and in particular could not remember having just eaten. Each was offered a second lunch ten to thirty minutes after finishing the first, on three separate occasions, and each readily ate it. Offered a third meal after the second, they usually began that too. Since their stomachs had received the food even though their memories had not, the study separates the physical signals of fullness from the memory of having eaten, and shows the memory doing a great deal of the work. The authors propose that knowing you have had what counts culturally as a complete meal may be sufficient reason to refuse more food. Two patients is a very small sample, and the demonstration is nonetheless difficult to explain any other way.
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What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Rozin, P., Dow, S., Moscovitch, M. & Rajaram, S. (1998). "What causes humans to begin and end a meal? A role for memory for what has been eaten, as evidenced by a study of multiple meal eating in amnesic patients." Psychological Science, 9(5), 392-396. Two densely amnesic patients. A case study and an existence proof, not an effect size.
Where we use it
- Why You Are Hungry an Hour After a Big Lunch, Why We Crave
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The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00073
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.00073