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Abnormalities in the Visual Processing of Viewing Complex Visual Stimuli Amongst Individuals With Body Image Concern
A J F Duncum1, K J Atkins1, F L Beilharz1
1School of Psychological Sciences and Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences, Monash University.
Advances in Cognitive Psychology
|May 7, 2016
Summary
Individuals with high body image concerns showed an increased inversion effect, not the expected local processing bias. Visual processing abnormalities in body dysmorphic disorder may be general, not appearance-specific.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
Background:
- Individuals with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) often exhibit visual processing abnormalities, specifically a bias towards local processing.
- This local processing bias is hypothesized to contribute to the perceptual distortions seen in BDD.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if individuals with high, nonclinical body image concerns (BIC) display a local processing bias.
- To determine if this potential bias is specific to appearance-related stimuli (faces, bodies) or general across visual stimuli.
Main Methods:
- A stimulus discrimination task using upright and inverted faces, scenes, objects, and bodies was administered.
- Participants with high BIC (n=25) and low BIC (n=30) completed the task.
- The inversion effect was measured to infer processing biases.
Main Results:
- Contrary to expectations, the high BIC group exhibited an increased inversion effect compared to the low BIC group.
- This suggests that perceptual abnormalities in high BIC individuals may not stem from a local processing bias.
- No significant differences in performance were found across different stimulus types (faces, scenes, objects, bodies).
Conclusions:
- The findings challenge the existing theory of local processing biases in BDD and related conditions.
- Visual processing abnormalities associated with high BIC appear to be general, not specific to appearance-related stimuli.
- This has significant implications for understanding the etiology and development of BDD, suggesting visual processing differences may be a predisposition or a consequence of the disorder.
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