Petko Kusev is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Kingston University and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at City University, London.
I explained my project idea and my research findings, Petko offered valuable advice and insights in to the methods I could use to test my hypothesis.
I aim to gather behavioural data on the effects and emotions to certain images. These images don’t necessarily need to be food based as I had initially planned, they could be general disgust.
I can introduce snacks as an intervention tool. Following the testing, I could introduce about 20 items, all around the same price, a third healthy, a third unhealthy and a third non food items – acting as a ‘thank you’ to my particpants for taking part.
General disgust vs food disgust.
I will be testing images which are proven to provide the same measurement of arousal, positive vs negative. For example a gorgeous picture of a beach, does it effect hunger? I can test 3 types of arousal:
- Positive – for example a picture of a gorgeous beach
- General – no images
- Specific – a picture which evokes general disgust
Petko is providing 2 images, one positive and one negative with the same level of arousal. These images have been tested on 500 people and are proven to evoke these levels of emotion and arousal.
Before the test begins I will ask participants questions using Likert scale:
- How hungry they are.
- When did they last eat.
- What they at.
- What do they want to eat now.
I will repeat the hunger questions and what they want to eat at the end as a way to compare the reaction to the images.
I will inform participants that this is a memory test. Show them images for the same amount of time, 30 seconds, then ask them to tell me things about it in single words. Recall.
This will enable me to measure accuracy and see if there is a pattern with the image type. For the neutral test, I will just have questions (these need to be established).
This test could be done using single participants or a group test in a lab at Kingston University.
I can also record:
- Time how long they took to choose snack.
- What did they choose?
- Overall time for test
Time dependat, the image test could be done on-line, using ‘Qualtrics‘ software.
If continuing this research I could conduct a Secondary study which could include variables, that are food related and unrelated in order to Isolate the effect.
Testing in 2 stages:
Methods:
- Most powerful prime.
- How this effects behaviour.
Using these testing methods I can establish what’s working and what’s not working. Then what predictor – this is powerful.
Testing plan to follow.