title: Body-size judgments and eye movements associated with looking at body regions in obese and normal weight subjects.
abstract: Eye movements of 20 male and 20 female obese and nonobese subjects were monitored during two body-size estimation tasks using a computer-based video technology. Analysis indicated no differences in body-size estimation between subjects using the staircase method. All subjects slightly underestimated body size; however, obese subjects were more sensitive than normal-weight subjects in detecting size distortion when a signal-detection task was employed. Eye-movement data indicated subjects looked longest at the chest, followed by waist, head, thighs, and calves/feet, in both the staircase and the signal-detection methods. Women viewed the waist region longer than men. On a signal-detection task subjects were better at detecting body-size distortion when viewing the body from the back than from front or profile.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Denver 80204-5300.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Gardner
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Morrell
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001824:Body Constitution; D001828:Body Image; D001835:Body Weight; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology*; D010469:Perceptual Distortion