In the past several decades, there has been a growing interest concerning
the relationship between memory processes and eating behavior. Several
studies have demonstrated that memory of a previous meal can influence and
even reduce future food consumption, but less is known about the
determinants of memory of eating. The present two experiments used a novel
procedure called the Memory of Eating Task to determine factors that
influence memory of eating. In this task, participants watched a film while
being cued to eat food on a predetermined and fixed schedule to ensure an
identical eating experience for all participants. After watching the film,
participants completed a distractor task and were then asked to recall the
number of food items they ate. In two pre-registered studies (N1 = 159, N2
= 128), we found that higher calorie foods (M&M’s and peanuts) were better
remembered than lower calorie foods (popcorn) (t(157) = 3.33, p < 0.01) and
that a slower eating rate resulted in more accurate memory of eating
compared to a faster eating rate. These findings provide important
theoretical implications and suggest that eating interventions may be
developed to target memory of eating.