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Theoretical models suggest that food-related visual attentional bias (AB) may be related to appetitive motivational states and individual differences in body weight; however, findings in this area are equivocal. We conducted a systematic review and series of metaanalyses to determine if there is a positive association between food-related AB and: (1.) body mass index (BMI) (number of effect sizes (k)=110), (2.) hunger (k=98), (3.) subjective craving for food (k=35), and (4.) food intake (k=44). Food-related AB was robustly associated with craving (r = .134 (95% CI .061, .208); p < .001), food intake (r = .085 (95% CI .038, .132); p < .001), and hunger (r = .048 (95% CI .016, .079); p = .003), but these correlations were small. Food-related AB was unrelated to BMI (r =.008 (95% CI-.020, .035); p = .583) and this result was not moderated by type of food stimuli, method of AB assessment, or the subcomponent of AB that was examined. Furthermore, in a betweengroups analysis (k = 22) which directly compared participants with overweight/obesity to healthy-weight control groups, there was no evidence for an effect of weight status on foodrelated AB (Hedge's g = 0.104, (95% CI-0.050, 0.258); p =.186). Taken together, these findings suggest that food-related AB is sensitive to changes in the motivational value of food, but is unrelated to individual differences in body weight. Our findings question the traditional view of AB as a trait-like index of preoccupation with food and have implications for novel theoretical perspectives on the role of food AB in appetite control and obesity.

Abstract Background Empathy for pain is a complex phenomenon incorporating sensory, cognitive and affective processes. Functional neuroimaging studies indicate a rich network of brain activations for empathic processing. However, previous research focused on core activations in bilateral anterior insula (AI) and anterior/anterior mid-cingulate cortex (ACC/aMCC) which are also typically present during nociceptive (pain) processing. Theoretical understanding of empathy would benefit from empirical investigation of shared and contrasting brain activations for empathic and nociceptive processing. Method Thirty-nine empathy for observed pain studies (1112 participants; 527 foci) were selected by systematic review. Coordinate based meta-analysis (activation likelihood estimation) was performed and novel contrast analyses compared neurobiological processing of empathy with a comprehensive meta-analysis of 180 studies of nociceptive processing (Tanasescu et al., 2016). Results Conjunction analysis indicated overlapping activations for empathy and nociception in AI, aMCC, somatosensory and inferior frontal regions. Contrast analysis revealed increased likelihood of activation for empathy, relative to nociception, in bilateral supramarginal, inferior frontal and occipitotemporal regions. Nociception preferentially activated bilateral posterior insula, somatosensory cortex and aMCC. Conclusion Our findings support the likelihood of shared and distinct neural networks for empathic, relative to nociceptive, processing. This offers succinct empirical support for recent tiered or modular theoretical accounts of empathy.

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