FOOD STIMULI AND GENDER

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desired. The builder interface of the software was used, which has very limited features, as
this interface at present did not offer a pre-load function for images, making it necessary to
use programming code for this function. Though, the overlapping of stimuli did not present
a major issue, it could have been avoided by having someone with programming experience
available.

5.2.3 Task Instructions
A critical point in this study was that participants did not receive any instruction
before the presentation of the food stimuli. Free viewing might introduce individual
strategies of visual attention that could induce inter-subject variability. However, the
researchers deliberately chose chose not to provide instructions for two reasons:
•

To eliminate any induced bias in the viewing behavior by avoiding the
unconscious priming of concepts.

•

To eliminate behavior out of awareness and encourage an intuitive response in
viewing the food stimuli based on pre-existing rather than newly formed
preference.