Food choices under cognitive load and time pressure

Last registered on May 13, 2024

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Food choices under cognitive load and time pressure

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0013411

Initial registration date

May 04, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

May 13, 2024, 12:04 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Italy

Region

Trento

Primary Investigator

Name

Youan Qian

Affiliation

Texas A&M University

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Austeja Kazemekaityte

PI Affiliation

University of Trento

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Rodolfo Nayga

PI Affiliation

Texas A&M University

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PI Name

Simone Cerroni

PI Affiliation

University of Trento

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Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2024-04-05

End date

2024-05-10

Keywords

Behavior

Additional Keywords

Food choices, Cognitive load, Time pressure, Episodic Future Thinking

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This study assesses how people's food choices differ under cognitive load, time pressure, and different type of information (subjective vs objective). We provide either objective (nutrition facts) or subjective information (future weight-gain and weight-loss pictures) when subjects are making food choices. Subjects go through 12 food choices rounds; in each round they are asked to choose between a normal product and its diet version.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Cerroni, Simone et al. 2024. "Food choices under cognitive load and time pressure." AEA RCT Registry. May 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13411-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2024-04-08

Intervention End Date

2024-05-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Food choice (regular vs diet version), measured under different conditions

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

We conduct a 3 x 2 between-subject design where we vary the type of information (subjective vs objective) and introduce either a cognitive load or a time pressure condition (against a control). Subjects are randomly assigned to one of the following treatments:

Treatment 1: food choice with nutritional tables
Treatment 2: food choice with episodic future thinking (picture of potential future weight loss and weight-gain)
Treatment 3: food choice with nutritional tables and memorization task
Treatment 4: food choice with nutritional tables and time pressure
Treatment 5: food choice with episodic future thinking and memorization task
Treatment 6: food choice with episodic future thinking and time pressure

Subjects go through 12 food choice rounds where in each they have to choose between a regular product and its diet version. In addition, electrodermal activity is measured during the experiment to record participants' emotional arousal levels when making the decisions.

Memorization task involves asking participants to memorize a 7 digit number and then report it after making a food choice task. This is done to induce cognitive load for the main task (food choice).

Time pressure task involves participants having to make each of 12 food choices within a limit of 10 seconds.

At the end of the study, participants are asked to answer a short socio-demographic questionnaire.

Subjects receive 7 euros for participation. At the end, participants in Treatments 3, 4, 5, and 6 also have a possibility to win extra 3 euros if they either make a randomly extracted choice within the time limit (time pressure treatments) or recall the number correctly (cognitive load treatments).

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

We randomly assign participants to sessions according to their availability. After participants arrive the lab, we randomly assign seats by letting them draw a numbered ball from a box.

Randomization Unit

Group of subjects at the session level

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Sample size: planned number of observations

27 * 6 = 162 observations

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

A minimum of 27 subjects per each of the between-subjects treatments (6 treatments)

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

a power analysis was performed in G*power 3.1., where we used a priori analysis for an ANOVA test with 6 groups (α=0.05, power=80%) and a moderate effect size d=0.25 (defined by Cohen (2013)). The power analysis showed that a total of 158 participants should be sufficient (27 participants per group, rounded up from 26.3). Our target is 240 (40 per group) participants in case of invalid datapoints.

Supporting Documents and Materials

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