Conclusions
ABM
The present registered report reveals that five to twenty days of combined practice of a GNG and ABM tasks robustly reduces the perceived value of the trained unhealthy sugary drink cues and their reported consumption. The decrease in consumption did not follow a dose-dependent relationship with the consistency of the mapping between the targeted items and motor inhibition. Our strict positive controls of baseline states and expectations, together with our use of a mechanistic control group, ensure that the effect observed on item valuation only follows from an “action-to-valuation” mechanism of action. Exploratory analyses suggest that the length of the intervention did not increase its effect size, but its persistence in time. In addition to confirming this latter observation, future studies may examine the effect of ECTs on implicit measures of liking/wanting and on various consumption outcomes, to provide conclusive information on whether such an approach indeed impact real-world behavior beyond perceived food item values.