Heather M Francis

Biographic Data

ID1660089
NAMEHeather M Francis
GIVEN NAMESHeather M
FAMILY NAMEFrancis
SIGNATUREFRANCIS H M
AFFILIATIONSIrsay Institute Indiana University Bloomington Indiana, IN
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS13
TOTAL CITATIONS20
AUTHOR COUNT13
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2017
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX3

  • Risk Factors for Cognitive Impairment in Adults Attending Australian Community‐Based Substance Use Treatment Services

    Open AccessNicole Ridley, Ashley Wheeler et al.ARTICLEDrug and Alcohol Review2026

  • Sound source ambiguity augments illusory mislocalisation of computer presented stomach rumbles to self

    Open AccessRichard J Stevenson, Stevenson Richard et al.ARTICLEPsychological Research2026

  • Evaluating psychological accounts of diet-related mood improvements using novel control conditions

    Open AccessLeah M Dudley, Leah S Dudley et al.ARTICLEAppetite2026References: 71

    Several randomised controlled trials have now reported that improvements in diet quality can improve mood. Such trials are methodologically challenging to design, because of the dual difficulty in providing control conditions that match the treatment activity (e.g., planning, shopping, cooking), and that blind participants to the treatment condition. These concerns raise the possibility that well understood psychological processes may amplify or …

  • Testing a learning-based account of interoceptive hunger using an illusory induction

    Open AccessR J Stevenson, Heather M Francis et al.ARTICLEAppetite2026References: 42

    Physiological changes cause many interoceptive cues (e.g., a rumbling stomach), and so it is often assumed they also cause their motivational consequences (e.g., hunger). However, there is grounds to suspect that the meaning of interoceptive cues are learned and it is their meaning that causes their motivational consequences. We tested this possibility by psychologically inducing an illusory interoceptive hunger cue to see if it stimulated hunger…

  • Using a bodily illusion to examine the motivational basis of interoceptive hunger cues

    Open AccessR J Stevenson, Daiana Martin-Rivera et al.ARTICLEPsychological Research2025

    Internal bodily sensations such as an empty rumbling stomach can lead to enhanced desire for food - hunger. As an empty rumbling stomach is caused by digestive physiology, it is often presumed that such physiological processes also cause hunger. However, psychological processes could equally generate hunger (e.g., based on what the physiological signal has come to connote), and here we outline a method to test this idea. Participants were exposed…

  • Changes in marital relationships over the course of the Covid ‐19 pandemic

    Open AccessKaren B Vanterpool, Heather M Francis et al.ARTICLEFamily Relations2025

  • Psychological induction of interoceptive hunger cues and their effect on food desire

    Open AccessR J Stevenson, Supreet Saluja et al.ARTICLEAppetite2025Cited by: 1References: 58

    Certain interoceptive hunger cues are caused by gut physiology. These interoceptive cues may have psychological consequences, namely an ability to enhance the desire to eat, which are independent of their physiological cause. Testing this idea is difficult because the physiological processes are normally linked to any consequence. In this preliminary report we attempted to induce an interoceptive hunger cue (a stomach rumble), to examine its psyc…

  • Parent-offspring similarity in hunger and thirst sensations

    Open AccessR J Stevenson, Daiana Martin-Rivera et al.ARTICLEAppetite2024Cited by: 3References: 30

    The internal (i.e., interoceptive) sensations that characterise hunger vary between people, and this may also be the case for thirst, although it has not been so well explored. There are probably both heritable and learning-based causes for this interoceptive variability. Consequently, it would seem plausible that parents and their offspring would have more similar patterns of hunger and thirst than pairs of strangers. We tested this idea, in add…

  • Efficiency of post-meal memory inhibition predicts subsequent food intake

    Open AccessR J Stevenson, Heather M Francis et al.ARTICLEAppetite2024References: 30

    Memory processes may contribute to appetite regulation. When people look at palatable foods, their desire to consume them depends upon memory retrieval (i.e., recalling if it will taste good). If memory inhibition occurs during satiety, then pleasant eating-related memories will not be retrieved, making eating less likely. In contrast, if memory inhibition is less efficient, pleasant food-related memories will be retrieved, the food will appear d…

  • Predictors of state-based changes in wanting and liking

    Open AccessR J Stevenson, Heather M Francis et al.ARTICLEAppetite2023Cited by: 2References: 38

    People report wanting food when they are hungry, and on eating it they typically report liking the experience. After eating, both wanting and liking decline, but wanting declines to a greater extent, which we term the 'affective discrepancy effect'. In this study we examine the predictors - state, sensory and memory-based - of these affective changes. Hungry participants undertook three tasks: (1) written recollections of what certain foods are l…

  • Recollections about food when hungry and sated

    Open AccessR J Stevenson, Heather M Francis et al.ARTICLEAppetite2022Cited by: 2References: 39

  • Wanting and liking for sugar sweetened beverages and snacks differ following depletion and repletion with energy and fluids

    Open AccessSophie Pender, R J Stevenson et al.ARTICLEAppetite2019Cited by: 6References: 25

  • The hippocampus and the regulation of human food intake

    R J Stevenson, Heather M Francis et al.ARTICLEPsychological Bulletin2017Cited by: 6

    Human and animal data suggest that the hippocampus plays certain roles in regulating food intake. However, its actual role may be far broader than currently envisaged, a claim suggested by the centrality of the hippocampus to so many aspects of human/animal cognition. Understanding these ingestion-related functions is especially significant. This is because some degree of hippocampal impairment may be quite common, resulting for example from a We…