Spacing of cue-approach training leads to better maintenance of behavioral change

The maintenance of behavioral change over the long term is essential to achieve public health goals such as combatting obesity and drug use. Previous work by our group has demonstrated a reliable shift in preferences for appetitive foods following a novel non-reinforced training paradigm. In the current studies, we tested whether distributing training trials over two consecutive days would affect preferences immediately after training as well as over time at a one-month follow-up. In four studies, three different designs and an additional pre-registered replication of one sample, we found that spacing of cue-approach training induced a shift in food choice preferences over one month. The spacing and massing schedule employed governed the long-term changes in choice behavior. Applying spacing strategies to training paradigms that target automatic processes could prove a useful tool for the long-term maintenance of health improvement goals with the development of real-world behavioral change paradigms that incorporate distributed practice principles.

长期维持行为改变，是实现对抗肥胖、药物滥用等公共卫生目标的必要前提。本团队既往研究证实，借助一种新型无强化训练范式（non-reinforced training paradigm），可使个体对食欲性食物的偏好产生稳定改变。在本研究系列中，我们检验了将训练试次分散于连续两日开展，是否会在训练后即刻以及1个月随访时点，对个体的食物偏好产生影响。本系列共包含四项研究，其中三项采用不同实验设计，另有一项为针对单一样本的预先注册重复实验。结果发现，线索趋近训练（cue-approach training）的分散安排，可在1个月周期内引发食物选择偏好的改变。所采用的分散与集中训练方案，决定了选择行为的长期变化模式。随着融入分布式练习原则（distributed practice principles）的现实行为改变范式的发展，将分散练习策略应用于针对自动化加工过程的训练范式，有望成为长期维持健康改善目标的有效工具。