Media multi-tasking and cued overeating: assessing the pathway and piloting an intervention using an attentional network framework

项目摘要：媒体多任务和暗示暴饮暴食：评估途径和引导 使用注意网络框架的干预 在美国，儿童肥胖是一个严重的公共卫生问题。已知的一个因素是 儿童肥胖是过度消费。重要的是，与体重增加相关的过度消费并不是 必然受到饥饿的驱使。例如，环境中的食物提示刺激大脑奖赏区域和铅 即使孩子吃得饱了，也要暴饮暴食。这种类型的暗示进食与 注意食物提示；孩子花在看食物提示(例如，食品广告)上的时间是 与卡路里摄入量增加有关。然而，个体对环境食物线索的敏感性仍然存在。 未知。我们认为，流行的媒体多任务-同时兼顾多个 电子媒体资源-增加对环境中外围食物提示的关注，从而发挥 在肥胖的发展中起着重要的作用。我们认为，多任务处理教会孩子们参与到 持续不断的任务切换，使他们对外围提示更有反应，其中许多提示可能 有害的(例如那些促进暴饮暴食的食物)。我们最重要的假设是媒体同时处理多项任务会改变 大脑的注意力网络，控制着对环境线索的注意力。高媒体多任务处理 因此，儿童特别容易受到食物暗示的影响，从而导致更多的暗示进食。它也是 我们坚信注意力调整训练可以提供保护作用，防止有害的注意力 通过增加注意力网络的熟练程度，处理过程导致了多任务处理。我们将直接测试 通过评估媒体多任务、对食物线索的注意和线索之间的路径，这些假说 吃东西。我们还将研究是否有可能通过引导注意力来干预这一途径 修改训练干预旨在减少对食物线索的注意。我们相信，这项研究将 导致开发低成本、可扩展的工具，这些工具可以训练注意力网络，使儿童更少 受外围食物暗示的影响，这是已知的暴饮暴食的原因。例如，让孩子们练习 注意修改干预任务定期完成(这可以通过用户友好的方式完成 电脑游戏或手机/平板电脑应用程序)可能会抵消媒体多任务的负面注意力影响。

Project Summary: Media multi-tasking and cued overeating: assessing the pathway and piloting an intervention using an attentional network framework Childhood obesity is a critical public health problem in the United States. One factor known to contribute to childhood obesity is excess consumption. Importantly, excess consumption related to weight gain is not necessarily driven by hunger. For example, environmental food cues stimulate brain reward regions and lead to overeating even after a child has eaten to satiety. This type of cued eating is associated with increased attention to food cues; the amount of time a child spends looking at food cues (e.g., food advertisements) is associated with increased caloric intake. However, individual susceptibility to environmental food cues remains unknown. We propose that the prevalent practice of media multi-tasking—simultaneously attending to multiple electronic media sources—increases attention to peripheral food cues in the environment and thereby plays an important role in the development of obesity. We believe that multi-tasking teaches children to engage in constant task switching that makes them more responsive to peripheral cues, many of which are potentially harmful (such as those that promote overeating). Our overarching hypothesis is that media multi-tasking alters the attentional networks of the brain that control attention to environmental cues. High media multi-tasking children are therefore particularly susceptible to food cues, thereby leading to increased cued eating. It is also our conviction that attention modification training can provide a protective effect against detrimental attentional processing caused multi-tasking, by increasing the proficiency of the attention networks. We will directly test these hypotheses by assessing the pathway between media-multitasking, attention to food cues, and cued eating. We will also examine whether it is possible to intervene on this pathway by piloting an attention modification training intervention designed to reduce attention to food cues. It is our belief that this research will lead to the development of low-cost, scalable tools that can train attention networks so that children are less influenced by peripheral food cues, a known cause of overeating. For example, having children practice attention modification intervention tasks regularly (which could be accomplished through user- friendly computer games or cell phone/tablet apps) might offset the negative attentional effects of media multi- tasking.