Food neophobia predicts visual ability in the recognition of prepared food, beyond domain-general factors

Food neophobia (FN), or the tendency to avoid novel foods, is associated with poor health. Most correlates of FN come from self-report, making it difficult to identify behavioral correlates that may be treatment targets. To begin to fill this gap, we explore the association between FN and the ability to visually recognize images of prepared food. We created the first two tasks specifically designed to measure the visual ability to recognize food and demonstrate their reliability and validity. In a convenience sample of adults, we find that individual differences in FN are negatively related to the ability to recognize images of food, after controlling for a large contribution from domain-general visual recognition ability, and influences of gender and general interest in visual recognition. These results are consistent with the possibility that FN and visual ability to recognize foods could be linked in a feedback loop that is mediated by familiarity. Our work provides tools that should facilitate the exploration of this mechanism, which may maintain the avoidance of novel foods that is commonly observed in FN.