FOOD STIMULI AND GENDER

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restrictedness might be one of the underlying factors that influence women’s attentional bias
toward low-calorie stimuli.
The correlations between the FEV I questionnaire and the ET variables show that
visit count correlated negatively and significantly with high- and low-calorie food stimuli in
the group of women. Visit count also had significant correlations with the group of women
and the EGE questionnaire. This finding suggests that visit count might be linked with
indecision and restriction, as women showed higher scores of restriction than men in the
present study and previous ones (Provencher et al., 2003). Tvd and TFD were not
statistically significant except in one correlation in the group of men. Though the
correlations tended to be negative for low-calorie stimuli and positive for high-calorie
stimuli, these correlations were not statistically significant.
One of this study’s objectives was to examine whether the eye-tracking data
correlated with pre-existing preferences and food intake. It was of interest to examine
whether the visual response to food stimuli would correlate with the self-reported “liking”
of foods and frequency of consumption. The food consumption does not necessarily reflect
preferences, and for that reason, both questionnaires were used. One person might prefer a
certain food but cannot afford it or the food might not be available to buy because of the
season of the year.
The study found correlations between preferences and reported food intake with the
eye-tracking data; these correlations were more pronounced in men than women. The link
between food liking or intake and attention to visual food stimuli was stronger in men than
women. For men, numerous statistically significant correlations were found; a pattern is seen
in that the low-calorie corresponding variables from the FLS or FFQ negatively correlated
with corresponding high-calorie ET variables in the experiment and vice versa. Men who