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Sun 12 Dec, 2010 09:49 pm
Context:
The last three experiments showed that the reduction in actual consumption following imagined consumption was due to habituation -- a gradual reduction in motivation to eat more of the food -- rather than alternative psychological processes such as priming or a change in the perception of the food's taste. Specifically, the experiments demonstrated that only imagining the consumption of the food reduced actual consumption of the food. Merely thinking about the food repeatedly or imaging the consumption of a different food did not significantly influence the actual consumption of the food that participants were given.
Habituation means doing something because it is habit, rather than doing something for a more compelling reason. It is jargon. Priming seems to be jargon in this context, as well, but i am unfamiliar with the jargon being used, so i can't tell you exactly what it means. To prime something means to prepare it for use--for example, old fashioned water pumps operated on the pressure in a piston, so if the water level fell below the piston, it was necessary to put water into the pump, to prime the pump, before enough pressure could be built up to make the pump effective. I cannot imagine what is meant by this use of jargon.
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