Many times, desire possesses us and impedes us from making healthier food choices. From a grounded cognition perspective, we investigated the role of two types of mental simulation (process and outcome) in desire and food choice to understand the processes that modulate them and find strategies that encourage healthier food choices. In addition to these explicit measures, we used two implicit methods to measure approach-avoidance tendencies and visual attention. Our results showed that imagining the consumption of vice and virtue foods increased desire for the product imagined and seemed to favor the choice of a vice food. However, at an implicit level, the motivation to approach and avoid food products was neutral. Imagining the post-consumption of a vice food decreased desire for the imagined food and although it tempted people at an implicit level, it made people more prone to choose a virtue food. When a vice food was imagined, attentional bias increased for all types of food regardless of the simulation. When a virtue food was imagined, there was no effect on choice, motivation nor attentional bias. In conclusion, simply imagining certain foods is a potential solution for promoting healthier and thoughtful choices.

中文翻译：

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快乐还是健康？心理模拟在欲望和食物选择中的作用。

很多时候，欲望拥有我们，并阻碍我们做出更健康的食物选择。从扎实的认知角度出发，我们研究了两种类型的心理模拟（过程和结果）在欲望和食物选择中的作用，以了解调节它们的过程并找到鼓励更健康食物选择的策略。除了这些显式度量，我们还使用了两种隐式方法来度量避免规避倾向和视觉注意。我们的结果表明，想象食用副食品和美德食品会增加人们对所想象的产品的渴望，并且似乎更倾向于选择副食品。但是，在一个隐含的层面上，接近和避免食品的动机是中立的。想象一下在食用副食后，人们对想象中的食物的渴望减少了，尽管它在内在的层面上诱惑着人们，但它却使人们更容易选择美德食物。当想象副食时，不管模拟如何，所有类型的食物的注意力偏差都会增加。当想象到美德食品时，对选择，动机和注意偏见都没有影响。总之，简单地想象某些食物是促进健康和体贴选择的潜在解决方案。