Caught Between a Carrot or a Cake...Ah, Decisions.

Could it really take milliseconds for you to choose between eating healthy foods or succumbing to your desire for tempting desserts?

         Researchers at Caltech performed a study that tested this theory in order to see if it was true. They asked the participants, after four hours of fasting, to choose between one of two food items that would appear of the screen: healthy food option or unhealthy food item. The participants would choose the one food item that they would choose if it were in front of them at the moment. The results showed that an average of 200 milliseconds was the time it took for a person to choose how the food would “taste” rather than it being healthy or not. This leads us to believe that when it comes to food and decision making an important factor usually is between taste and health. However, could it lead us to regret those food decisions later? What factors come into place when it comes to decision making and regret?

         Brian Sweis a medical student discussed a few of these points during his lecture at Loyola University Chicago. A big part of his lecture was discussing a study that involved decision making in rats that gave insight on decision making and regret. The article that correlated with this study was entitled, “Behavioral and Neurophysiological correlates regret in rat decision making on a neuroeconomic task.” In this study rats were given flavored pellet options to choose from. Each pellet was given a time delay wherein the rat could choose to stay and wait to receive the pellet, go for another, or miss the opportunity to receive a pellet completely.  However there were instances where the rat would choose to leave one food option and wait longer for the other. Within the experiment the rat would show a sense of regret- looking back at their first option being more desirable. Because of this, when another opportunity rose to receive the more desirable treat, the rats were more likely to wait it out and hastily eat their reward. All of this happens within a few seconds and each analyzes the cost to benefit within milliseconds as well. This study gave insight on how these types of time sensitive situations can be a factor in decision making.

         Going back to the recent study at Caltech, when it comes to time sensitive situations, it becomes more of an instinctive response: what we want at the moment, regardless of actually weighing the consequences that comes after the decision. It was seen with the rats because after missed opportunities to receive the desirable pellet, they opted to wait for the reward they considered to be beneficial during latter experiments. However there are times where some people do forego the risk and go straight for the reward and in this case it was the cake. Maybe it is better for us to analyze the cost to benefit ratio when it comes to choosing foods. It may reduce the amount of regret we have later on.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/choosing-carrots-cake-snap-decision-researchers/story?id=28036848

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/choosing-between-carrots-and-cake-is-a-snap-decision-researchers-say.html

https://luc.app.box.com/neuroscienceseminar/1/5783478297/47239583029/1