Incidental learning and memory for food varied in sweet taste in children

This experiment investigated incidental learning and memory in children (age 7-10 years) for three different foods (fruit juice, fruit purée and biscuit), varied in sweetness. Children (N = 286) were exposed to three target foods and 24 h later their incidental learning was tested for one of the foods by asking them to recognize the target among distractors varying in sweetness. Children were also asked to rate their liking for the products.Overall, the children showed incidental learning for the food eaten the previous day, but recognition was not equal for all stimuli: a memory effect was found for fruit purée but not for biscuit and fruit juice. Memory was based on the correct rejection of the distractors rather than on target recognition. Hedonic scores were high, but lowest for fruit purée. Memory was not related to liking, but it is likely that other factors like novelty and familiarity may have been influential.

Research highlights► Food memory is strongly product-dependent. ► Children show memory for sweetness in fruit purée but not in biscuit and fruit juice. ► Children food memory is tuned to detect novelty. ► Children food memory is not related to liking. ► Novelty and familiarity may be influential in food memory.