Per Møller
Neuropsychology of Food Perception and Preference Formation
In this talk I will provide an overview of the senses that determine how foods are perceived. I will explain how different types of satieties shape eating behavior as well as the importance of food reward. The overwhelming majority of food preferences are learned evaluations. I will discuss how this is the cause of severe health problems, but also how the plasticity of the sensory mechanisms responsible for food preference formation might provide the key for solving many of these problems.
Per Møller was educated in mathematics and physics at the University of Copenhagen. After completing an MSc degree he wrote a PhD in Visual Cognitive Science at the University of Rochester, NY. After his PhD he spent six years in the UK working on problems in vision. When he returned to Denmark in 1999 he took up psycho-physical and electrophysiological studies of senses other than vision, most notably olfaction. He also works on cognitive and affective neuroscience of eating behavior investigating food preference formation and choice behavior. With Peter Barham he is co-editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Flavour.