One's Stomach isn’t bigger than one's eye’s: the sensation of hunger does not boost images of food into visual awareness.

Abstract

The sensation of hunger is an ecologically important aspect of life and so far no research has assessed how hunger could play a role in selecting the content of visual awareness. A healthy group of observers is tested using the breaking Continuous Flash Suppression task. This task allows measuring the time it takes for interocularly suppressed stimuli to gain perceptual dominance. Here, the sensation of hunger is manipulated to assess the role it has on interocular competition between different stimulus categories (i.e. Food, Animal, Object and Transport). Although interoceptive information such as hunger is highly ecologically relevant, the results provided no evidence that hunger has an effect on perception. Additionally, the method used within this experiment is new to the field and might provide new insight for research into visual awareness. The present results are discussed in light of the locus at which interocular competition is resolved.