Attentional bias toward one's own body: A systematic review of eye-tracking studie

Body dissatisfaction is prevalent and central to eating disorders. Cognitive-behavioral and sociocultural models suggest that maladaptive body-related schemas may bias visual attention toward one's own body. Eye-tracking provides a spatially precise method for quantifying gaze allocation, yet findings remain fragmented across populations and paradigms. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we systematically reviewed 33 eye-tracking studies examining region-level visual attention to one's own body in eating disorder, subclinical, and nonclinical samples. Across paradigms, participants often allocated more attention to body regions they evaluated negatively or perceived as weight-related. This pattern was most consistent in eating disorder samples and individuals with elevated body dissatisfaction and was associated with eating-disorder symptom severity, global and region-specific dissatisfaction, and, less consistently, BMI. Contextual modulation was also observed: negative mood induction increased attention to disliked regions in eating disorder groups, whereas hormonal phase and sociocultural factors were linked to shifts in gaze allocation in some studies. Intervention findings suggested that affective change and gaze change may not always occur in parallel: body exposure was generally associated with reduced negative affect and dissatisfaction but showed inconsistent effects on gaze allocation, whereas attentional bias modification training was more consistently associated with short-term changes in gaze patterns. Methodological heterogeneity-particularly in stimulus type, exposure duration, area-of-interest definitions, gaze metrics, and AOI-size normalization-likely contributed to variability. Overall, self-body attentional allocation appears to be associated with body dissatisfaction and eating pathology, while remaining sensitive to emotional and sociocultural context.