Cognitive Daily  ResearchBlogging.orgA few years ago we
discussed a fascinating study which appeared to show that the
main reason we stop eating at the end of a meal isn’t because we
“feel” full. Instead, we simply see that we’ve finished eating
the food in front of us, so we stop. We don’t eat more an hour
later because we remember we just ate.  In that study, led by
Paul Rozin, experimenters provided two amnesic patients with two
meals separated by just 15 minutes. They both did not recall
eating the previous meal due to their medical condition, and
each of them ate both meals as if they hadn’t had anything to
eat.  But maybe amnesia has additional subtle effects. The
condition is usually caused by severe brain trauma, so it’s
possible that amnesics (or the particular amnesics in the study)
have also lost their ability to detect fullness. Could that
explain their seemingly bizarre behavior?  A team led by Suzanne
Higgs identified two new patients who had a similar type of
amnesia: They could not form new lo