PONE-D-22-32995Reversing Food Preference Through Multisensory ExposurePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Das,

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Kind regards,

Joydeep Bhattacharya

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

First off, I am really sorry for the inordinate delay in getting to a decision. For some reason, it was incredibly difficult to find suitable referees (more than a dozen people were approached). I have now received one solid report from a knowledgeable referee, and based on their report, I am happy to offer you a chance to revise and submit your paper. It is a major revision. The referee has mixed feelings. They think the design introduces confounds and disturbs the clean identification. To be acceptable for publication, you would need to significantly clarify and provide more rationale and background on the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism of the task (i.e. provide more detail and justification on the modification they mention making to it), potentially reinterpret results and conclusions as appropriate, and both mention and elaborate upon this in the study limitations in your discussion. I'd also like to see a point-by-point discussion of the referee's main comments. I will take a final decision in the next round. No promises, of course, at this stage.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

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Reviewer #1: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Reviewer Comments for the Authors

INTRODUCTION

Overall comments:

1. The authors could better summarize past literature on ERPs by highlighting and describing the work done in a few select seminal papers demonstrating N200/N2, P2, P300, and LPP’s respective importance and association with attention, food stimuli, and inhibitory control, which would provide more context for the chocolate stimuli they reference.

2. The manuscript’s introduction could be more clearly laid out by having the authors group all their specific aims for the manuscript in a section at the end of the introduction instead of presenting them throughout the introduction. This would provide a better segue from their review of the literature, regarding what is known, to how they now approach filling in these research gaps with their specific aims for the current study.

3. Following the above comment, in some instances the aims of the paper seem to be repeated. It would be helpful if the authors could more succinctly summarize their aims and objectives perhaps grouping them as:

Whether behavioral desire ratings for craved foods translates to Willingness-To-Pay value measures

Prediction of Willingness-To-Pay value for craved food items

Efficacy of the Reversal Food Preference for the food craving induction for disliked foods

Neural correlates of food craving and its modulation (univariate and multivariate analyses)

4. In addition to two previous points made above, the methods and techniques used to achieve each of these aims and objectives are sporadically referenced throughout the introduction as the aims are not consolidated in one specific section. By marrying each brief description of the approach used with each aim/objective the authors would be able to improve the clarity of their manuscript and better layout the experiments they detail in the Methods and Results sections of the manuscript.

5. The reversal of food preference is mentioned only at the end of the introduction. As it is highlighted in the title of the manuscript and a main topic of the manuscript, the authors should consider mentioning it sooner in their introduction and place more emphasis on its importance and relevance in their study, perhaps introducing it along with or after their summary on past literature on the regulation of craving.

Specific comments:

6. The wording, “progress from craving to spending,” on page 3 could be clarified, perhaps by using the word valuation instead. Here, the authors could also emphasize the progression and motivation behind acting on cravings, expanding on this idea as well.

7. Similarly, the wording, “efficient public health policies” on page 3 could be improved by saying replacing “efficient” with “effective”.

MATERIALS & METHODS

Overall Comments:

8. The authors could describe the criteria for their sample better by providing both an inclusion and exclusion criteria for their participants.

9. The methodology and experimental timeline of the task are intermixed in the Methods section, making it hard to follow how the experiment was carried out. The authors could improve clarity on this by detailing their methods and measures used in the study prior to then separately outlining the timeline of the task in another section.

10. The labels “Experiment 1” and “Experiment 2” that the authors used would benefit from having more descriptive names as Experiment 1 has no EEG component and is primarily behavioral, while Experiment 2 includes EEG with the task. The authors should consider renaming “Experiment 1” and “Experiment 2” to “Behavioral Experiment” and “EEG Experiment”, respectively.

11. It would be helpful if the authors specified what modification they made to the Becker-DeGroot-Marshak task when they discuss it on page 6 and include references to past literature validating this approach.

12. Discussion of the goals of the study in the methods section should be omitted and moved into the introduction and discussion as appropriate.

Specific Comments:

13. The authors should explicitly state what variables were used in their Spline Regression Models for clarity on page 9.

14. Sample sizes should be reported with (n=#) notation throughout the manuscript.

15. The authors should consider spelling out rather than abbreviating “viz.” on page 8.

16. The authors should include Table 1 in the Results section rather than the Materials and Methods section.

RESULTS

Overall comments

17. The authors should consider restructuring the results section by summarizing and comparing the results for all the different groups (DFE, LFE, NEC) for each of the analyses together instead of reporting the results by group in three different sections. This would cut down on repeated explanations of what the analysis is and what was done and relieve the need to have a summary at the end of the Results section as the main findings between the group comparisons are summarized in the respective analysis sections previously.

18. The authors should also consider including change point detection plots for the non-exposed foods. This would help visualize the magnitude changes in bid and desire ratings for the food item used in the multisensory food exposure experience relative to the food items participants were not exposed to.

Specific Comments:

19. For clarity the authors should more explicitly state which Chi-square test is for their behavioral experimental sample and which is for the EEG experimental sample on page 10.

20. The authors should consider adding more descriptive title and axis labels to Figure 3 to distinguish the behavioral and EEG panels of the figure.

21. Additionally for each panel in Figure 3, the group comparison of FCQ-S scores would be easier to read and visually compare if the before and after bars for each group (DFE, LFE, NEC) were shown side-by-side.

22. Figure 4 would benefit from using different hues of the experimental group’s color to distinguish between the bid value and desire responses plotted for each group. Additionally it would be good to add visualizations of the statistical tests done to the plots to better highlight the change point findings reported in the results.

23. The authors should consider refraining from describing models with superlatives like “best model” on page 12, perhaps using words like “optimal” instead.

24. The authors should consider adding axis labels and subplot titles in Figure 5 to clarify which groups what pre- or post-exposure model being shown in each panel. Additionally the authors should consider using a maker other than an asterisk in these plots, such as open circles, so the density of points can be better assessed as the asterisks are harder to distinguish from one another when they overlap.

25. Figure 7, 8, and 9 could be collapsed into one figure with the same legend, with separate panels for each of the different topological clusters EEG data was recorded from.

DISCUSSION

Overall comments:

26. The authors should be cautious when using the word craving throughout their discussion. Their results suggest that individuals do enter a state of craving, but from what they describe in their methodology and the results they present it is unclear if this food craving is specifically for the disliked food item or if it is that they are experiencing some form of a craving.

Specific Comments:

27. The authors are unclear in part of their statement on page 21 that states, “... increase in desire does not always lead to WTP.” The authors should clarify whether they mean an increase or decrease of WTP.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Reversing Food Preference Through Multisensory Exposure

PONE-D-22-32995R1

Dear Dr. Das,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Joydeep Bhattacharya

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: