Paper of the Month: Award Recipients Robert Friedmann, Dr. Rea Rodriguez-Raecke, and Dr. Rik Sijben

This study investigated how distraction during eating affects taste perception in the brain. Robert Friedmann, Dr. Rea Rodriguez-Raecke and Dr. Rik Sijben found that while flavors were perceived as less intense during distracting videos, activity in primary taste-processing regions remained unchanged, suggesting that these effects arise from higher cognitive and attentional processes. Their paper, “Engaging visual media shifts taste-related neural processing: An fMRI study on distracted eating”, was honored with the “Paper of the Month” award for October 2026.