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, 392-396.

III. Overview:

Although many mechanisms have been proposed for regulation of eating, the role of cognitive factors, specifically memory, have been overlooked. While most of the proposed mechanisms for controlling eating have involved specific brain nuclei, Rozin et al. sought to uncover the possible role of remembering that one has eaten in starting and stopping the feeding process.

IV. General Method:

Two persons with massive and sustained explicit memory loss served as subjects. Each subject was invited to eat a second or third meal within 10 to 30 minutes of consuming a previous meal. Three experimental sessions were conducted. Two control subjects were also used. All subjects also rated their subjective feelings of hunger.

V. Conclusions and Implications:

Both experimental subjects consumed more than one meal. In Session 1, subject BR ate 2 meals and subject RH partially ate 3 meals. In Session 2, BR finished 2 meals and partially finished a third and RH again partially ate 3 meals. Session 3 results were identical to Session 2 results. For both BR and RH, subjective ratings of hunger seemed to decrease across meals. In contrast, across 2 sessions, both control subjects consumed only 1 meal. Rozin et al. argued that these findings suggest that "memory for eating and the current eating situation are more predictive of consumption than physiological signals resulting from recent meals" (p. 394). As importantly perhaps, is the authors' suggestions of the usefulness of using amnesic patients of studies in such research because they serve as effective within-subject controls for the effects of past experiences on present behavior.