Sharing Science at the ThinkTank

March 19, 2022

Last week the APPETITE team, along with the Aston University psychology department, paid a visit to Birmingham’s ThinkTank Museum to talk to adults and children about the exciting work taking place.
On the menu for the PEACh (Psychology of Eating in Adults and Children) team was information on why children refuse food and how they decide between two unfamiliar foods. Through a picture game, children were asked to select whether they would prefer to eat familiar (e.g., chicken) or unfamiliar foods (e.g., frog’s legs). Children were also asked whether they believed that broccoli was ‘yummy’ or ‘yucky’ based on people’s facial expressions. The researchers were on hand to explain to parents and caregivers why children made the food choices they did.
The event also provided the opportunity for parents to play the child feeding computer game, developed by Dr Megan Jarman, Professor Jackie Blissett (Psychology), and Dr Maria Chli (Computer Science). The computer game simulates a parent/child interaction to have the child eat their vegetables. The player can apply different strategies, such as distraction techniques, to try and achieve the goal of the game.
Click through the photos to see what we got up to!