Summary statistics.

Growing evidence suggests that resource scarcity can severely impede individuals’ cognitive capacity, resulting in sub-optimal decision making. Few experimental studies investigate whether food deprivation as a form of resource scarcity influences decisions in other non-hunger related domains. We examine the effect of short term fasting on cognitive capacity by exogenously manipulating individuals’ fasting time in a laboratory experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: 1) 3-hour fast; 2) 12-hour fast; and 3) control, in which participants were not required to fast and consumed a protein shake upon arriving to the lab. Following the manipulation, participants completed the Raven’s Progressive Matrices test which measures cognitive function. Although we find null treatment effects on cognitive ability, our results provide evidence that short term fasting does not directly inhibit cognition.

越来越多的证据表明，资源匮乏会严重削弱个体的认知能力，进而导致决策表现未达最优。目前鲜有实验研究探讨作为资源匮乏表现形式的食物剥夺，是否会影响个体在非饥饿相关领域的决策行为。本研究通过实验室实验外源性操纵个体的禁食时长，探讨短期禁食对认知能力的影响。参与者被随机分配至三组处理之一：1）3小时禁食组；2）12小时禁食组；3）对照组，该组参与者无需禁食，并在抵达实验室后饮用一份蛋白奶昔。实验操纵结束后，参与者完成了用于测量认知功能的瑞文推理测验（Raven’s Progressive Matrices）。尽管未观测到各组处理对认知能力存在显著影响，但本研究结果表明，短期禁食并不会直接抑制认知功能。