Science: Hunger is Affected by Memories

This Scientific American article points to a study that reveals how our memories affect our hunger.

Image: iStock/Vitalii Netiaga

"The first result is that there’s no fooling your stomach immediately after a meal. When tested shortly after eating the soup, subjects who had eaten the larger portion were more sated than those who had eaten the smaller portion, and it mattered comparatively little how much people thought they ate. Two cups is more than one cup, and your stomach gets it right, despite any visual trickery. Two and three hours after eating, however, a different sort of pattern emerged. The subjects were all hungrier, of course, but their hunger had little to do with the volume of soup they had actually eaten. Instead, it was what they remembered seeing in the bowl that mattered. In fact, those who ate the small portion and thought it was large were more sated than those who ate the large portion and thought it was small. When it comes to the feeling of fullness, the eyes are more important than the stomach."