A COGNITIVE MODEL OF CHILDRENS REPORTING OF FOOD-INTAKE

A model of cognitive processing is proposed to understand children's s elf-reports of diet. The model is a simplification of what is known ab out cognitive processing and includes three structural components: sen sory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Several proces ses describe functioning of the model, including attention, perception (or interpretation), organization, retention, retrieval, and response formulation. The ideas explain several phenomena in the literature on children's self-reports of dietary intake. Research questions are ide ntified for each process to help specify the model and lead to improve d methods for dietary assessment in children.