Heightened responses to the hedonic qualities of sucrose in olfactory conditioning for women scoring high on the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire disinhibition scale

In flavour¿flavour learning (FFL), repeated co-experience of a novel flavour and a hedonically valanced flavour can lead to changes in liking for the novel flavour. Some studies suggest that restrained eaters are insensitive to FFL, while disinhibited eaters may over respond to hedonic stimuli. Here we assessed FFL through associations between food-related odours and sweet and bitter tastes to explore further how eating attitudes influence FFL. 52 women, pre-selected to be high or low on the restraint and disinhibition factors from the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ), evaluated two novel odours orthonasally before experiencing retronasal pairings of one odour with sucrose and the second with quinine before orthonasal re-evaluation of the odours. At post-training, overall liking increased for the sucrose-paired odour but this effect was greater in women with high scores on the TFEQ disinhibition factor. Liking for the quinine-paired odour decreased equally in all groups. The sucrose-paired odour was rated as sweeter, and quinine-paired odour more bitter at post-training and these acquired sensory qualities were unaffected by restraint or disinhibition factors from the TFEQ. Overall, these data found no evidence of impaired FFL in restrained women, but instead found greater responsiveness to hedonic qualities of sucrose in women scoring high on the disinhibition factor, consistent with suggestions that this factor identifies individuals with heightened hedonic sensitivity to food.