EDIT: see caveat from K-Wall below. Can't trust anything these days :-/ </edit>

That's exactly how it works, to an extent. In a study [1], people with self-refilling soup bowls ate 73% more soup (p < 0.01) than those eating from normal soup bowls. Similar with popcorn [2]. I first read about this either in Nudge or in Mindless Eating.

[1] Wansink, B., Painter, J.E., & North, J. (2005). Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues of Portion Size May Influence Intake Obesity Research, 13 (1), 93-100

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2005.12

[2] http://projectputthatcookiedownnow.com/2011/bottomless-bowls...

I wouldn't cite Wansink... the guy had 15 retractions in the past year for making shit up.

Oh, good to know. Are you aware of more details? Replications or critiques of those studies? (As I said, I came across them in pop-sci books.)

The unit I'm affiliated with was tasked by the university to run replications and ultimately assist with the retractions. This was all done by my colleagues but I heard about it quite often. Past that I am going to refrain on commenting more as I'm unqualified to do so.

Two published replication studies (used for retractions) can be found here:

https://cisermgmt.cornell.edu/go/PHPs/catalogSingleStudy.php...

https://cisermgmt.cornell.edu/go/PHPs/catalogSingleStudy.php...

How replicated has the study been? Even a fully credible researcher should not be trusted when their research has not been replicated due to just how prevalent replication issues are in psychology.

In anything…

People like to rag on psychology for this, but the same replicability problem affects a lot of fields. Some of it is sloppiness (or straight-out fraud, which is more likely here) but it's also just that science is hard!

At least in physics you don't see nearly the level of trust until a study have been replicated and confirmed. You might see a few news articles about someone's cold fusion reactor, but there is far more skepticism and scientists in related fields are much quicker to not trust it unless it has independent replication.

Soft sciences don't seem to have a similar culture.

You’re probably right that half-baked psych and biomedical articles show up in the media more, but I think it’s a mistake to extrapolate from that to the actual work going on in the field.

He utterly mangled it, but there is an experiment which proves the underlying concept (which I'm guessing was his intent, live testimony is hard):

Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues of Portion Size May Influence Intake

Objective: Using self‐refilling soup bowls, this study examined whether visual cues related to portion size can influence intake volume without altering either estimated intake or satiation.

Research Methods and Procedures: Fifty‐four participants (BMI, 17.3 to 36.0 kg/m2; 18 to 46 years of age) were recruited to participate in a study involving soup. The experiment was a between‐subject design with two visibility levels: 1) an accurate visual cue of a food portion (normal bowl) vs. 2) a biased visual cue (self‐refilling bowl). The soup apparatus was housed in a modified restaurant‐style table in which two of four bowls slowly and imperceptibly refilled as their contents were consumed. Outcomes included intake volume, intake estimation, consumption monitoring, and satiety.

Results: Participants who were unknowingly eating from self‐refilling bowls ate more soup [14.7 ± 8.4 vs. 8.5 ± 6.1 oz; F(1,52) = 8.99; p < 0.01] than those eating from normal soup bowls. However, despite consuming 73% more, they did not believe they had consumed more, nor did they perceive themselves as more sated than those eating from normal bowls. This was unaffected by BMI.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2005.12

There are reasons to be skeptical about the results of this study:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/feb/1...

That's polite! I would say that I doubt nearly everything that's come out of that lab…

A much better analogy, however I still think the generalization of "videos" as a single body of liquid is an overstep. It's not like the plot of a YouTube video just extends forever, you are aware you're starting a new video each time.

Much the same way that you're aware of each spoonful scooped up.

It is a dumb analogy to be sure, but I think the point is valid. As intensely social creatures, humans are not particularly well adapted to handle the never-ending waterfall of synthetic social interactions you get from the likes of Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc.

In the past, getting as much social information as possible about your tribe was a huge reproductive advantage, but now that modern social network products have boosted the populations of our "tribes" into the thousands, trying to consume all that information has downsides that far outweigh the positive.

Facebook is basically the psychological equivalent of high fructose corn syrup.

I imagined this as a glass attached to a table with a false bottom that constantly refills the glass. When you drink some of the liquid (presumably with a straw?) the glass is instantly refilled, which makes it hard to tell how much you've drank.

In other words: I agree, this really isn't a great example.

Bottomless margaritas have led to many a poor decision.

(They remain legal, though.)

Like when my brother decided to keep my glass full all the time at the bar. I got soo wasted, didn't even realise.

We know that portion size matters, because people will eat/drink what’s in front of them.

including analogies.