Decision Making
Food Cue Reactivity Task
Also called: food cue exposure task, food craving picture task, picture cue reactivity task
Measure how much pictures of food draw a wish to eat: participants rate how much they want foods and everyday objects shown one at a time.
6-8 minUntimed
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Preview any test free after you sign up.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 639
- Evidence grade
- C
- Registered clinical studies
- 188
What it measures
Measures how much pictures of food draw a wish to eat. Participants look at pictures of food and of everyday objects, rate how much they want each one right now, and report their hunger before and after. No food is offered.
Constructs
- Food cue reactivity
- Cue-induced wanting
- Appetite and reward
Research uses
- Eating behavior and appetite research at the group level
- Obesity and nutrition studies
- Within-study comparison of high- and low-calorie food cues
How the paradigm works
The food cue reactivity task measures how much pictures of food draw a wish to eat, compared with pictures of everyday objects rated by the same person. Comparing a cue with a neutral control comes from cue-reactivity research on addiction (Carter and Tiffany, 1999). In a meta-analysis of 69 statistics from 45 reports and 3,292 participants, food cue reactivity and craving predicted later eating and weight gain (r = .33), and pictures and videos worked about as well as real food (Boswell and Kober, 2016).
More about the paradigm
Participants first say how many hours ago they last ate, how hungry they are and how much they want to eat right now. They then see two blocks, in an order drawn for each session: 30 pictures of food, 15 high-calorie and 15 low-calorie, and 15 pictures of everyday objects. Each picture stays on the screen for 4 seconds (2 to 8 in the settings). The participant then marks how much they want to eat it, or have it, right now, on a bar from 0 to 100 with no numbers shown and no starting point, with no time limit. Hunger and wanting to eat are asked again after each block. Two practice pictures outside the rated set come first. No food is offered and no eating instruction is given. The pictures come from CROCUFID, an open food picture set (Toet and colleagues, 2019), and show no people; the questions were written for this task.
The main score, cue reactivity, is the mean rating of the food pictures minus the mean rating of the objects, in points. The task also reports high-calorie minus low-calorie ratings, the change in wanting to eat across the food block compared with the object block, hunger at the start, hours since eating and median rating time. Scores support research and do not diagnose.
Scores
- Cue Reactivitypoints
- Mean rating of the food pictures minus the mean rating of the objects, on the 0 to 100 bar.
- Positive values mean food pictures drew more wanting than objects
- High- Minus Low-Caloriepoints
- Mean rating of the high-calorie foods minus the mean rating of the low-calorie foods.
- Positive values mean high-calorie foods drew more wanting
- Change in Wanting to Eat, Food vs Objectspoints
- The change in wanting to eat across the food block minus the change across the object block.
- Positive values mean wanting to eat rose more after food pictures
- Hunger at Startpoints
- How hungry the participant said they were before the first picture, on the 0 to 100 bar.
- Informational
- Hours Since Eatinghours
- How many hours ago the participant said they last ate. 0 means less than 1 hour and 24 means 24 hours or more.
- Informational
- Median Rating Timems
- Median time from the start of a picture's rating screen to Confirm, leaving out times under 100 ms.
- Informational
- Mean Food Ratingpoints
- Mean rating of the food pictures.
- Higher means more wanting
- Mean Object Ratingpoints
- Mean rating of the object pictures.
- Higher means more wanting
- Mean High-Calorie Ratingpoints
- Mean rating of the high-calorie foods.
- Higher means more wanting
- Mean Low-Calorie Ratingpoints
- Mean rating of the low-calorie foods.
- Higher means more wanting
- Wanting to Eat at Startpoints
- How much the participant wanted to eat before the first picture, on the 0 to 100 bar.
- Informational
- Change in Wanting to Eat After Foodpoints
- Wanting to eat just after the food block minus just before it.
- Positive values mean wanting to eat rose
- Change in Wanting to Eat After Objectspoints
- Wanting to eat just after the object block minus just before it.
- Positive values mean wanting to eat rose
- Food Block Firstflag
- 1 when the food block came first, 0 when the object block came first.
- For analysing scores by block order
- Rated Picturesitems
- Pictures rated in the scored run, out of 45.
- Quality check
- Longest Run of One Ratingitems
- Most pictures in a row given exactly the same rating.
- Quality check
- Anticipationscount
- Ratings confirmed within 100 ms of the start of the rating screen.
- Quality check
Use and evidence
639 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, up 11% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 36 of 395 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 190 |
| 2024 | 92 |
| 2023 | 122 |
| 2022 | 113 |
| 2021 | 122 |
| 2020 | 136 |
| 2019 | 132 |
| 2018 | 96 |
| 2017 | 112 |
| 2016 | 102 |
| 2015 | 113 |
| 2014 | 102 |
| 2013 | 95 |
| 2012 | 80 |
| 2011 | 73 |
| 2010 | 59 |
| 2009 | 62 |
| 2008 | 38 |
| 2007 | 43 |
| 2006 | 23 |
| 2005 | 27 |
| 2004 | 20 |
| 2003 | 15 |
| 2002 | 20 |
| 2001 | 20 |
| 2000 | 20 |
Use grade B
300 to 999 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade C
At least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 7
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 167
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 188
Note on the counts: includes physiology studies, and the counts include drug, alcohol and smoking cues while this version shows food.
How the grades work
Use: A is 1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025, B 300 to 999, C 100 to 299, D 30 to 99 and E fewer than 30. Evidence: A means at least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome; B, at least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers; C, at least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies; D, little published measurement evidence found. The counts measure use. They include every paper that names the task in its title or abstract. Grades describe the published research on this task, not ConductCognition's version of it.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Pictures
- 30 pictures of food, 15 high-calorie and 15 low-calorie, and 15 pictures of everyday objects, from CROCUFID, an open food picture set. No picture shows people or spoiled food.
- Display
- One picture at a time, up to 600 by 400 px, for 4 seconds (standard; 2 to 8). The picture then leaves the screen.
- Rating
- A 0 to 100 bar with no numbers shown and no starting point, from Not at all to Very much, with no time limit. Food: How much do you want to eat this right now? Objects: How much do you want to have this right now?
- Blocks
- One block of food and one of objects, in an order drawn from the session's seed and saved. The food order has no more than 3 foods of one calorie class in a row.
- Between pictures
- A 500 ms blank screen.
- How the participant feels
- Before the first picture: hours since last eating (0 to 24), hunger and wanting to eat. Hunger and wanting to eat again after each block, on the same bar.
- Practice
- 2 pictures outside the rated set, one food and one object, each followed by a note about the mark made.
The pictures are food and everyday objects. No food is offered and no eating instruction is given. Published cue reactivity studies also use drug, alcohol and smoking cues; this version shows food only. The questions were written for this task.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: food_cue_reactivity_rating from the scored run, one rating per picture, with no correct answer. Fewer than 30 rated pictures, or no ratings for food or for objects, invalidate. The same rating on every picture invalidates, and the same rating on 20 or more pictures in a row is flagged for review. Ratings under 200 ms on at least half the pictures invalidate.
Why these rules
There is no correct option to compare with chance, so accuracy is not judged against chance. The score compares food with objects, so it needs ratings of both and enough of them. The same exact value on every picture separates nothing, so the session is invalid. A run of 20 is longer than the block of 15 objects: someone who wants none of the objects can honestly rate them all 0, and someone who has just eaten can do the same for food, so a long run only flags the session for review (long-string checks; Curran 2016). An answer under 200 ms is faster than a simple visual reaction, so it cannot reflect the item. Following response-time effort screening for untimed tests (Wise and Kong 2005), the session is invalid only when at least half the answers are that fast. A hidden tab lets the study, delay or response timers run without the participant, so a percentile is withheld after one.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Time per picture (seconds) | 4 | 2 to 8 |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- No percentile. Scores and quality flags only. How norms work
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Food Cue Reactivity Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Carter & Tiffany, 1999; Boswell & Kober, 2016), with the standard settings (time per picture (seconds): 4). The main score was cue reactivity (mean rating of the food pictures minus the mean rating of the objects, on the 0 to 100 bar).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Boswell, R. G., & Kober, H. (2016). Food cue reactivity and craving predict eating and weight gain: A meta-analytic review. Obesity Reviews, 17(2), 159-177. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12354
- Carter, B. L., & Tiffany, S. T. (1999). Meta-analysis of cue-reactivity in addiction research. Addiction, 94(3), 327-340. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1360-0443.1999.9433273.xComparing responses to a cue and a neutral control.
- Toet, A., Kaneko, D., de Kruijf, I., Ushiama, S., van Schaik, M. G., Brouwer, A.-M., Kallen, V., & van Erp, J. B. F. (2019). CROCUFID: A cross-cultural food image database for research on food elicited affective responses. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 58. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00058The food and object pictures, and the desire-to-eat ratings used to choose them.
- Blechert, J., Meule, A., Busch, N. A., & Ohla, K. (2014). Food-pics: An image database for experimental research on eating and appetite. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 617. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00617Rating food and object pictures online, one at a time, on a bar with hidden numbers.
Source papers
- Boswell RG, Kober H (2016). Food cue reactivity and craving predict eating and weight gain: a meta-analytic review. Obesity Reviews, 17(2):159-177.Paradigm source, Children and adults
- Toet A, Kaneko D, de Kruijf I, Ushiama S, van Schaik MG, Brouwer AM, Kallen V, van Erp JBF (2019). CROCUFID: A cross-cultural food image database for research on food elicited affective responses. Frontiers in Psychology, 10:58.Paradigm source, Adults
- No normative data for this task.Paradigm source, N/A
Questions
How long does the Food Cue Reactivity Task take?
About 6 to 8 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Cue Reactivity, High- Minus Low-Calorie, Change in Wanting to Eat, Food vs Objects, Hunger at Start, Hours Since Eating, Median Rating Time, Mean Food Rating, Mean Object Rating, Mean High-Calorie Rating, Mean Low-Calorie Rating, Wanting to Eat at Start, Change in Wanting to Eat After Food, Change in Wanting to Eat After Objects, Food Block First, Rated Pictures, Longest Run of One Rating and Anticipations. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Food Cue Reactivity Task used in research?
639 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, up 11% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 36 of 395 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade B). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Food Cue Reactivity Task have?
In the published research, 7 papers report its test-retest reliability and 188 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade C in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which settings can a researcher change?
Time per picture (seconds) (2 to 8). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
Participants can take this test in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese. English is on every plan, and the other languages come with yearly plans. Have a native speaker read the machine-translated text before launch.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
Every test: the full test list.
Run this test in your next study
Start free with 10 free participants on any test, then use participant credits or a yearly plan.