Abnormalities in visual processing amongst students with body image concerns

Mundy, Matthew; Sadusky, Andrea

doi:10.5709/acp-0155-4

Cited by 22 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(73 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Similar to our EEG study with a presentation time of 1,000 ms, investigations using a short presentation time between 250 and 500 ms (30,33) failed to find smaller face inversion effects, suggesting that BDD individuals and healthy controls may equally process faces in a global, holistic and configural way when given a brief presentation (30). Thus, long presentation times between 5 and 7 s may allow more time for encoding details (30)(31)(32). This might also partly explain the results from previous fMRI and EEG studies, which found abnormal brain activation patterns during encoding of detailed and configural features for longer stimulus presentation times between 3 and 4 s (22,23,72), and abnormal early perceptual processing during structural encoding for presentation times of 2s (24,25).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Neural Correlates of Own- and Other-Face Perception in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is characterized by an excessive preoccupation with one or more perceived flaws in one's own appearance. Previous studies provided evidence for deficits in configural and holistic processing in BDD. Preliminary evidence suggests abnormalities at an early stage of visual processing. The present study is the first examining early neurocognitive perception of the own face in BDD by using electroencephalography (EEG). We investigated the face inversion effect, in which inverted (upside-down) faces are disproportionately poorly processed compared to upright faces. This effect reflects a disruption of configural and holistic processing, and in consequence a preponderance of featural face processing. Methods:We recorded face-sensitive event-related potentials (ERPs) in 16 BDD patients and 16 healthy controls, all unmedicated. Participants viewed upright and inverted (upside-down) images of their own face and an unfamiliar other face, each in two facial emotional expressions (neutral vs. smiling). We calculated the early ERP components P100, N170, P200, N250, and the late positive component (LPC), and compared amplitudes among both groups.Results: In the early P100, no face inversion effects were found in both groups. In the N170, both groups exhibited the common face inversion effects, with significantly larger N170 amplitudes for inverted than upright faces. In the P200, both groups exhibited larger inversion effects to other (relative to own) faces, with larger P200 amplitudes for other upright than inverted faces. In the N250, no significant group differences were found in face processing. In the LPC, both groups exhibited larger inversion effects to other (relative to own) faces, with larger LPC amplitudes for other inverted than upright faces. These overall patterns appeared to be comparable for both groups. Smaller inversion effects to own (relative to other) faces were observed in none of these components in BDD, relative to controls. Conclusions:The findings suggest no evidence for abnormalities at all levels of early face processing in our observed sample of BDD patients. Further research should investigate the neural substrates underlying BDD symptomatology.Keywords: body dysmorphic disorder, own-face perception, face inversion effect, event-related potentials, electroencephalography Ritter et al.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Neural Correlates of Own- and Other-Face Perception in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is global, rather than local information that is most sensitive to orientation and thus affected by inversion [ 35 , 37 ]. To recognise inverted faces individuals must switch from default global processing to local processing in order to identify the individual features, which subsequently causes delays and increased errors [ 17 , 26 , 31 , 32 , 34 , 39 ].…”

Section: Body Imagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, it is unclear whether this local processing bias precedes and thus contributes to the intense focus on details as reflected in BDD symptomology, or whether this maladaptive fixation on perceived defects later influences where vision is directed. Accordingly, Mundy and Sadusky [ 26 ] investigated whether inversion effects differed between non-clinical participants categorised as having high- or low-BIC. The Dysmorphic Concern Questionnaire (DCQ;[ 6 ]), a common BDD screening tool, was used to quantify BIC [ 49 ].…”

Section: Body Imagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Extending from Feusner et al [ 12 ] by utilising both symptom specific and non-symptom related stimuli, both groups completed an upright-inverted stimulus (faces, bodies and scenes) discrimination task where participants discriminated between pairs of successive upright or inverted stimuli which were either the same image, or were morphed to be slightly different. This task revealed that compared to the low-BIC group, high-BIC participants were significantly faster at discriminating inverted faces and bodies, and had superior accuracy rates for discriminating inverted body and scene stimuli [ 26 ]. Although both groups demonstrated general face and body inversion effects, this was significantly reduced for the high-BIC individuals, reflecting visual processing deficits found in BDD participants [ 12 , 20 ].…”

Section: Body Imagementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Altering Visual Perception Abnormalities: A Marker for Body Image Concern

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The body image concern (BIC) continuum ranges from a healthy and positive body image, to clinical diagnoses of abnormal body image, like body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). BDD and non-clinical, yet high-BIC participants have demonstrated a local visual processing bias, characterised by reduced inversion effects. To examine whether this bias is a potential marker of BDD, the visual processing of individuals across the entire BIC continuum was examined. Dysmorphic Concern Questionnaire (DCQ; quantified BIC) scores were expected to correlate with higher discrimination accuracy and faster reaction times of inverted stimuli, indicating reduced inversion effects (occurring due to increased local visual processing). Additionally, an induced global or local processing bias via Navon stimulus presentation was expected to alter these associations. Seventy-four participants completed the DCQ and upright-inverted face and body stimulus discrimination task. Moderate positive associations were revealed between DCQ scores and accuracy rates for inverted face and body stimuli, indicating a graded local bias accompanying increases in BIC. This relationship supports a local processing bias as a marker for BDD, which has significant assessment implications. Furthermore, a moderate negative relationship was found between DCQ score and inverted face accuracy after inducing global processing, indicating the processing bias can temporarily be reversed in high BIC individuals. Navon stimuli were successfully able to alter the visual processing of individuals across the BIC continuum, which has important implications for treating BDD.

show abstract

“…For example, Feusner and colleagues demonstrated that BDD patients are impaired at processing low spatial frequency information in faces, and demonstrate hypoactivity in occipital regions during processing of low spatial frequency information from own face, other face, and object stimuli (Feusner et al, 2007; Feusner et al, 2010a; Feusner et al, 2010b; Feusner et al, 2010c; Feusner et al, 2011). Patients with BDD and individuals with a high degree of body image concern also show a reduced face inversion effect (i.e., a worsening of performance when making judgments about faces that are upended compared to upright faces) (Feusner et al, 2010b; Jefferies et al, 2012; Mundy and Sadusky, 2014). Because the face inversion effect has traditionally been thought to reflect the contrast between rapid configural processing of upright faces versus slower serial processing of inverted faces (Tanaka and Farah, 1993; Tanaka and Sengco, 1997; Freire et al, 2000; Taubert et al, 2011; Peters et al, 2013) [but see (Rakover, 2013; Civile et al, 2014; Xu and Biederman, 2014) for other accounts of the effect], and because low spatial frequency information carries the majority of information about global form (Tanaka and Farah, 1993; Costen et al, 1996; Deruelle and Fagot, 2005), these data suggest a reduction in PO in BDD.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of visual perceptual organization in schizophrenia and body dysmorphic disorder

Silverstein

Elliott

Feusner

et al. 2015

Psychiatry Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People with schizophrenia are impaired at organizing potentially ambiguous visual information into well-formed shape and object representations. This perceptual organization (PO) impairment has not been found in other psychiatric disorders. However, recent data on body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), suggest that BDD may also be characterized by reduced PO. Similarities between these groups could have implications for understanding the RDoC dimension of visual perception in psychopathology, and for modeling symptom formation across these two conditions. We compared patients with SCZ (n=24) to those with BDD (n=20), as well as control groups of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients (n=20) and healthy controls (n=20), on two measures of PO that have been reliably associated with schizophrenia-related performance impairment. On both the contour integration and Ebbinghaus illusion tests, only the SCZ group demonstrated abnormal performance relative to controls; the BDD group performed similarly to the OCD and CON groups. In addition, on both tasks, the SCZ group performed more abnormally than the BDD group. Overall, these data suggest that PO reductions observed in SCZ are not present in BDD. Visual processing impairments in BDD may arise instead from other perceptual disturbances or attentional biases related to emotional factors.

show abstract

Abnormalities in visual processing amongst students with body image concerns

Cited by 22 publications

References 48 publications

Neural Correlates of Own- and Other-Face Perception in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Neural Correlates of Own- and Other-Face Perception in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Altering Visual Perception Abnormalities: A Marker for Body Image Concern

Comparison of visual perceptual organization in schizophrenia and body dysmorphic disorder

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About