Perception of Peripersonal and Interpersonal Space in Patients with Restrictive-type Anorexia

This study examines whether the perception of peripersonal action-space and interpersonal social-space is modified in patients with restrictive-type anorexia in two experimental conditions using videos. First, participants stopped the video of an approaching stimulus when they felt the distance to be comfortable for interacting with it (first-person perspective). Second, participants stopped the video when an observed individual approaching a stimulus, or being approached by it, was at a comfortable distance (third-person perspective). In the first-person perspective, the results showed an estimation of peripersonal space that did not differ from controls when an object was approaching and an increase in interpersonal space compared with controls when a male or female individual was approaching. In the third-person perspective, both individual-object and individual-individual distances were larger in anorexic patients. These results indicate a specific deficit in adjusting interpersonal distances in both the first-person and third-person perspectives. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.