Dot Probe Tasks Produce No Attentional Modifications Towards Healthy Weight Bodies

Using the dot-probe paradigm, previous research has demonstrated that women on average show attentional biases towards underweight bodies. However, little research has used these paradigms to examine the malleability of such biases. Here, we examined whether a single session of attention bias modification training, in which participants were trained to attend to healthy-weight bodies, reduced attentional orientation towards underweight bodies and improved body satisfaction.

One hundred and twenty-one female participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental group in which they were trained to attend to healthy weight bodies or a control group (with no manipulation). Participants' body satisfaction was measured at two phases, before and following attentional training.

We found no changes to attentional biases or body satisfaction across both groups.

Dot-probe attention bias modification tasks may not be able to modify body satisfaction and attention biases towards healthy-weight bodies following a single training session. Future research is encouraged to consider alternative attentional modification paradigms to modify pathological body image.