Forbidden Fruit Task

Background

The Forbidden Fruit Task (FFT) is a psychological behavioral task used in cognitive research to study the "forbidden fruit effect"; a phenomenon where people become significantly more curious about or drawn to information simply because it has been labeled as unavailable, prohibited, or off-limits.

The paradigm was introduced by Lily FitzGibbon and colleagues in 2020 on the Open Science Framework (OSF) and officially published in 2024. They utilized an arbitrary card-selection game across large age samples (ages 5 to 79) to demonstrate that merely restricting an option spikes an individual's lower-level cognitive curiosity and memory availability.

Task Procedure

The default setup of the task presents participants with 10 decks of cards with colorful padlock icons. Each card deck contains a deck of 6 pleasant images (e.g. a series of desserts). The picture categories are assigned randomly to each card deck out of 16 possible ones. Nine of the 10 card decks have an 'open' padlock and can be immediately selected to be viewed. One card deck is 'locked' with a closed padlock that stays locked until the last trial. The color of the locked padlock is randomly determined by participant at the beginning of the trial.

The task consists of 4 trials total. For each trial participants select one of the 'open' card decks to uncover its hidden pictures. A visual animation reveals each image, and the complete set of 'lovely' pictures is presented for 5s total. At the end of each trial, participants rate how much they liked the revealed cards on a 5-point Likert scale. On the last trial, the previously locked card deck gets unlocked and can be selected to be viewed. At task conclusion, participants are asked if they could select the previously locked icon on the screen.

What it Measures

The Forbidden Fruit Task (FFT) measures prohibition-induced curiosity.

Psychological domains

• Attention Allocation: Tendency to prioritize focusing attention on restricted stimuli over neutral ones.
• Working Memory: Tendency to keep 'prohibited' item highly accessible in memory.
• Information Seeking: The mechanics of how people search for and acquire new data.
• Intrinsic Motivation: Internal drive to know something purely for the sake of knowing it.
• Epistemic Curiosity: The baseline desire to close "information gaps."

Main Performance Metrics

• Selection of Forbidden Deck: Main measure of prohibition-induced curiosity
• Recognition Accuracy: Main measure of memory retention of prohibited item

Psychiatric Conditions

As of this date, the FTT has not yet been used for research with clinical populations.

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Forbidden Fruit Task.

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Sussman, S., Grana, R., Pokhrel, P., Rohrbach, L. A., & Sun, P. (2010). Forbidden Fruit and the Prediction of Cigarette Smoking. Substance Use & Misuse, 45(10), 1683-1693. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3109/10826081003682230. doi:10.3109/10826081003682230

DeWall, C. N., Maner, J. K., Deckman, T., & Rouby, D. A. (2011). Forbidden fruit: Inattention to attractive alternatives provokes implicit relationship reactance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(4), 621–629. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021749

FitzGibbon, L., Ogulumus, C., Fastrich, G. M., Lau, J. K. L., Aslan, S., Lepore, L., & Murayama, K. (Preprint). Understanding the forbidden fruit effect: People's desire to see what is forbidden and unavailable. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/ndpwt https://osf.io/preprints/osf/ndpwt

FitzGibbon, L., Ogulumus, C., Fastrich, G. M., Lau, J. K. L., Aslan, S., Lepore, L., & Murayama, K. (2024). Understanding the forbidden fruit effect: People's desire to see what is forbidden and unavailable. Cognition, 245, Article 105711. https://doi.org