Abstract
Food choice is mostly learned. Preferences for food are for a large part shaped by pleasant or aversive experiences with food. After learning, mere perception of food items may elicit strong approach or avoidance reactions toward these foods relatively independent of intentions to eat these foods, which may cause difficulties with adhering to a healthy diet. This raises the question whether associations with food items can be changed to ultimately change food preferences. In this chapter, we will first discuss basic learning mechanisms that shape food preferences via the creation of pavlovian biases. In our culture these learning mechanisms tend to favor the development of preferences for higher-calorie foods rather than for lower-calorie foods. Then we will discuss recent work suggesting that such pavlovian biases favoring higher-calorie foods over lower-calorie foods may be reduced by associating food items with motor responses, or the absence thereof, during short computer trainings. We will outline how this approach may ultimately help consumers to choose foods they want.
