3.1.2. Procedure

The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and followed APA ethical standards. Procedures in Experiment 2 were almost identical to those of Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, the SSD in the food-stop-signal task was initially set to 300 ms and a tracking procedure was then applied (see [30]). The only differences were that participants completed the FVCT (Figure 3) before and after completing the F-SST in order to assess changes in their implicit attitudes toward palatable foods, and that the taste test was not administered.

## 3.1.3. Measures

The food–valence compatibility task (FVCT; Figure 3) was used to assess implicit attitudes toward food by examining response interference caused by associating palatable food images with positive and negative words. Each trial of the task began with a 1000 ms fixation followed by the target word that was presented for 1000 ms or until response. In each trial, one of four clearly positive words (i.e., excellent, wonderful, great, or pleasurable) or one of four negative words (i.e., gross, disgusting, terrible, or horrifying) was randomly selected and presented at the upper center panel of the screen. Under the target words, prime-pictures were presented. The prime-pictures were randomly selected out of 10 palatable food and 10 non-food pictures. Participants were asked to categorize the words to positive vs. negative-valence words by pressing the "Z" key (with their left hand) or the "?" key (with their right hand), respectively. Instructions emphasized the need to respond to the target word as quickly and as accurately as possible. Prior to the experimental block, a training block was administered. This training block was used in order to train participants to associate a left response with positive words and a right response with negative words. The training block was identical to the experimental block but consisted of the word "good," that appeared in the upper left side of the screen, and the word "bad," that appeared at the upper right side of the screen. The prime-pictures were not presented in the training block, and participants received feedback for response time (RT) and accuracy. The task therefore started with a block of 12 random training trials followed by an experimental block of 80 trials.

**Figure 3.** An example of a positive food trial of the food–valence compatibility task (FVCT) used in Experiment 2. Participants are asked to classify pleasant words to a "positive" category and unpleasant words to a "negative" category.

The main dependent measure of the FVCT was the food–valence association effect, which is calculated as RT for non-food trials minus RT for food trials. The food–valence association effect is calculated separately for each valence condition (positive vs. negative). In the negative-valence condition, a larger effect (non-food RT > food RT) indicates that food and negative words are associated and thus suggests more negative attitudes toward palatable food, whilst in the positive-valence condition, a larger effect (non-food RT > food RT) indicates that food and positive words are associated and thus suggests more positive attitudes toward palatable foods.
