“Looks do matter”—visual attentional biases in adolescent girls with eating disorders viewing body images

Horndasch, Stefanie; Kratz, Oliver; Holczinger, Anna; Heinrich, Hartmut; Hönig, Florian; Nöth, Elmar; Moll, Gunther H.

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2011.12.029

Cited by 43 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…However, although they report differences in the fixation patterns between the women with AN and controls, there is only limited consensus on which areas are favoured or avoided 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. This may be due to methodological differences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…For example, there is considerable variability in the stimuli used; in their pose, whether the images were in colour or black and white, whether the face or head was shown in the image, the length of the presentation, whether the pictures were of real bodies or of computer‐generated bodies, and in the type and amount of clothing they were wearing 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Perhaps the most important factor in these differences is the choice of the free‐viewing condition for stimulus presentation (i.e., the participants look at bodies without any specific judgement being required of them) 14, 16, 17, 19. Instead, the eye‐movements are related to the participants' scores on psychometric measures14, 17, 19 or to behavioural judgements which have been made at a different time and not during eye‐movement recording 16.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps the most important factor in these differences is the choice of the free‐viewing condition for stimulus presentation (i.e., the participants look at bodies without any specific judgement being required of them) 14, 16, 17, 19. Instead, the eye‐movements are related to the participants' scores on psychometric measures14, 17, 19 or to behavioural judgements which have been made at a different time and not during eye‐movement recording 16. This is important because the pattern of fixations is significantly different for different judgements, such as between judgements of attractiveness, body size and body shape 20.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fixation patterns, not clinical diagnosis, predict body size over‐estimation in eating disordered women and healthy controls

Cornelissen

Hancock

et al. 2016

Intl J Eating Disorders

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ObjectiveA core feature of anorexia nervosa (AN) is an over‐estimation of body size. Women with AN have a different pattern of eye‐movements when judging bodies, but it is unclear whether this is specific to their diagnosis or whether it is found in anyone over‐estimating body size.MethodTo address this question, we compared the eye movement patterns from three participant groups while they carried out a body size estimation task: (i) 20 women with recovering/recovered anorexia (rAN) who had concerns about body shape and weight and who over‐estimated body size, (ii) 20 healthy controls who had normative levels of concern about body shape and who estimated body size accurately (iii) 20 healthy controls who had normative levels of concern about body shape but who did over‐estimate body size.ResultsComparisons between the three groups showed that: (i) accurate body size estimators tended to look more in the waist region, and this was independent of clinical diagnosis; (ii) there is a pattern of looking at images of bodies, particularly viewing the upper parts of the torso and face, which is specific to participants with rAN but which is independent of accuracy in body size estimation.DiscussionSince the over‐estimating controls did not share the same body image concerns that women with rAN report, their over‐estimation cannot be explained by attitudinal concerns about body shape and weight. These results suggest that a distributed fixation pattern is associated with over‐estimation of body size and should be addressed in treatment programs. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Int J Eat Disord 2016; 49:507–518).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fixation patterns, not clinical diagnosis, predict body size over‐estimation in eating disordered women and healthy controls

Cornelissen

Hancock

et al. 2016

Intl J Eating Disorders

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“…[6,7]). However, research on eating disorders shows that a second attention focus on ‘index body parts' [8] that communicate information about body shape and size (e.g. waist) occurs as well.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where Do You Look Visual Attention to Human Bodies across the Weight Spectrum in Individuals with Normal Weight or with Obesity

Leehr¹,

Giel²,

Schäffeler³

et al. 2018

Obes Facts

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Objective: We investigated how individuals with normal weight (NW) versus individuals with obesity (OB) visually explore human bodies varying in BMI. Methods: 16 OB (BMI 37.5 ± 7.7 kg/m²) and 35 NW (BMI 21.5 ± 1.6 kg/m²) visually explored 35 natural photographs and 25 avatars depicting male and female bodies ranging from normal weight to obesity. Gaze behaviour was assessed using eye tracking technology. Additionally, participants rated the attractiveness of all body stimuli. Results: A comparison of the displayed gaze behaviour shown by both participant weight classes indicates that regarding visual stimuli of obese natural bodies, all participants (OB + NW) looked at the waist longer, whereas regarding visual stimuli of normal-weight bodies, all participants viewed the head longer. Overall, OB spent less time looking at the bodies than NW. All participants rated normal-weight bodies as more attractive than obese bodies. However, the NW sample rated the depicted obese bodies as even less attractive than the OB sample did. Conclusions: TheBMI of the explored body, but not the observer's BMI, produces differences in the visual exploration of human bodies. The displayed exploration pattern of obese bodies can cautiously be interpreted as a ‘de-individualised' and ‘obesity-focused' perception. This tendency may prove in close relationship with the negative cultural views on obesity.

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“…The first one is the clothing effect. The typical stimuli used in previous research included photographic or computerised images of females in swimwear (Roefs et al, 2008;Lykins et al, 2014), underwear (Jansen et al, 2005), Lycra (Blechert et al, 2009;Jannelle et al, 2009) or nude (Glauert et al, 2010;Horndasch et al, 2012), thus revealing the shape of the figure in great detail. What is yet to be considered is the viewing behaviour for images where the body regions are somewhat ambiguous, such as in everyday clothing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women gaze behaviour in assessing female bodies: the effects of clothing, body size, own body composition and body satisfaction

Cundall

Guo

2015

Psychological Research

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Often with minimally clothed figures depicting extreme body sizes, previous studies have shown women tend to gaze at evolutionary determinants of attractiveness when viewing female bodies, possibly for self-evaluation purposes, and their gaze distribution is modulated by own body dissatisfaction level. To explore to what extent women's body-viewing gaze behaviour is affected by clothing type, dress size, subjective measurements of regional body satisfaction and objective measurements of own body composition (e.g., chest size, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio), in this self-paced body attractiveness and body size judgement experiment, we compared healthy, young women's gaze distributions when viewing female bodies in tight and loose clothing of different dress sizes. In contrast to tight clothing, loose clothing biased gaze away from the waist-hip to the leg region, and subsequently led to enhanced body attractiveness ratings and body size underestimation for larger female bodies, indicating the important role of clothing in mediating women's body perception. When viewing preferred female bodies, women's higher satisfaction of a specific body region was associated with an increased gaze towards neighbouring body areas, implying satisfaction might reduce the need for comparison of confident body parts; furthermore undesirable body composition measurements were correlated with a gaze avoidance process if the construct was less changeable (i.e. chest size) but a gaze comparison process if the region was more changeable (i.e. body mass index, dress size). Clearly, own body satisfaction and body composition measurements had an evident impact on women's body-viewing gaze allocation, possibly through different cognitive processes.3

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“Looks do matter”—visual attentional biases in adolescent girls with eating disorders viewing body images

Cited by 43 publications

References 14 publications

Fixation patterns, not clinical diagnosis, predict body size over‐estimation in eating disordered women and healthy controls

Fixation patterns, not clinical diagnosis, predict body size over‐estimation in eating disordered women and healthy controls

Where Do You Look Visual Attention to Human Bodies across the Weight Spectrum in Individuals with Normal Weight or with Obesity

Women gaze behaviour in assessing female bodies: the effects of clothing, body size, own body composition and body satisfaction

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