Impaired configural body processing in anorexia nervosa: Evidence from the body inversion effect

Abstract

Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) suffer from severe disturbances of body perception. It is unclear, however, whether such disturbances are linked to specific alterations in the processing of body configurations with respect to the local processing of body part details. Here, we compared a consecutive sample of 12 AN patients with a group of 12 age-, gender- and education-matched controls using an inversion effect paradigm requiring the visual discrimination of upright and inverted pictures of whole bodies, faces and objects. The AN patients presented selective deficits in the discrimination of upright body stimuli, which requires configural processing. Conversely, patients and controls showed comparable abilities in the discrimination of inverted bodies, which involves only detail-based processing, and in the discrimination of both upright and inverted faces and objects. Importantly, the body inversion effect negatively correlated with the persistence scores at the Temperament and Character Inventory, which evaluates increased tendency to convert a signal of punishment into a signal of reinforcement. These results suggest that the deficits of configural processing in AN patients may be associated with their obsessive worries about body appearance and to the excessive attention to details that characterizes their general perceptual style.

Anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder are associated with abnormalities in processing visual information

“…In the N170 profile, participants with AN did not show significant differences in activation at the (corrected) threshold of p <.016, however, they did show hypoactivity in primary visual areas at a lower threshold of p <.05. These support previous findings of poor central coherence and diminished holistic and configural processing in individuals with AN, for bodies ((Lopez et al 2008; Urgesi et al 2013) and complex figures (Lopez et al 2009; Kim et al 2011). We did not, however, find evidence of increased detailed processing in AN, from our HSF condition.…”

Body-part compatibility effects are modulated by the tendency for women to experience negative social comparative emotions and the body-type of the model

“…In fact, there is some literature to suggest that women with body-related disturbances and eating disorder symptoms have weaker activation of the EBA [9], and possess altered structural and functional capacities of the EBA [60,61]. As such, social comparative emotional tendencies may be relevant modulators within the EBA—as a critical neural network associated with body image disturbances [62,63]. Second, although all efforts were made to ensure that the main experimentally-relevant feature that differentiated the models was level of “thinness” (i.e., images were matched on the most salient criteria [i.e., pose, clothing, body parts exposed, facial expression, hair color, skin color, etc.…”

Relationship Between Maternal Sensitivity During Early Interaction and Maternal Ability in Perceiving Infants' Body and Face

“…To explore whether infant perinatal variables, maternal and sociodemographic characteristics, and IRI scores were associated with mothers' sensitivity, a series of independent‐sample t ‐tests were performed comparing low‐ and high‐sensitivity mothers. Given we were particularly interested in testing how the amount of configural processing of body and face stimuli was modulated by the identity of the infant among mothers with low and high sensitivity, in keeping with previous studies (Bosbach, Knoblich, Reed, Cole, & Prinz, ; Busigny, Joubert, Felician, Ceccaldi, & Rossion, ; Busigny & Rossion, ; Urgesi et al., ), we calculated an index of body and face inversion effect (respectively, BIE and FIE) by subtracting, for each identity, the individual accuracy in discriminating inverted stimuli from that in discriminating upright stimuli. Similar indexes were calculated for RTs by subtracting the individual mean RTs in discriminating upright stimuli from those in discriminating inverted stimuli.…”

“…A trial started with the presentation of a central fixation point lasting 500 ms and followed by a sample stimulus presented for 250 ms at the center of the monitor. The sample duration was in keeping with previous studies testing body inversion in healthy individuals (Minnebusch & Daum, 2009;Reed et al, 2006;Urgesi et al, 2014;Yovel et al, 2010), thus ensuring the optimal conditions to detect it. The experimenter monitored eye position by checking continuously the participant's gaze during tachistoscopic presentation.…”

“…Configural processing of body and face stimuli seems to play a crucial role in correct detection of social cues, as shown, for example, by evidence of reduced face (Dawson, Webb, & McPartland, ; but see Weigelt, Koldewyn, & Kanwisher, ) and body (Reed et al., ) inversion effects in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, deficits of configural processing of bodies, but not of faces, have been reported in individuals with schizophrenia (Soria Bauser et al., ) and anorexia nervosa (Urgesi et al., ). Not only these studies suggest the link between configural processing of bodies and faces and social perception abilities, but also they highlight the possible dissociation (Reed et al., ) between configural processing of faces, which is strongly linked to the perception of the individual identity, and bodies, which seems to be more strongly linked to action perception and preparation of motor reaction (De Gelder, ).…”