Negative and Positive Body-Related Emotions Derived From Voice Recordings During a Mirror Task in Anorexia and...

Body dissatisfaction has been linked to negative and positive emotions. The validity of self-report methods to assess emotions in individuals with eating disorders is limited, prompting a shift towards methods like natural language processing to analyze speech content. Using artificial intelligence, this study aimed to identify specific body-related emotions elicited by looking at oneself in the mirror in individuals with eating disorders.

Women with anorexia nervosa (n = 24), women with bulimia nervosa (n = 36), and healthy women (n = 72) completed a three-minute mirror exposure task, verbally expressing their body-related emotions while viewing themselves in a three-winged mirror wearing underwear. N = 132 audio recordings were transcribed and analyzed using the GermanEmotions model (based on RoBERTa) to identify 28 emotions. Univariate ANOVAs and post hoc tests were conducted to identify group differences in expressed emotions. Prediction of symptom severity was analyzed across groups.

Compared to healthy women, those with anorexia and bulimia nervosa expressed anger, disappointment, disgust, embarrassment, fear, grief, nervousness, remorse, and sadness significantly more frequently (all ds = |0.53|-|1.11|), and admiration, approval, joy, love, optimism, and pride significantly less frequently (all ds = |0.64|-|1.12|). Disgust predicted higher eating disorder symptom severity across all groups (p < 0.001).

A distinct range of body-related emotions differentiates women with anorexia and bulimia nervosa from healthy women. Elicited negative emotions, especially higher disgust, and diminished positive emotions suggest that body-related interventions could benefit from fostering positive emotions instead of merely reducing negative emotions.