Modeling individual differences in perceptual and attentional processes related to bulimic symptoms.
Attentional and perceptual differences between women with high and low levels of bulimic symptoms were studied with techniques adapted from cognitive science. Stimuli were pictures of young women varying in body size and facial affect. A multidimensional scaling analysis showed that the high-symptom women were significantly more attentive to information about body size and significantly less attentive to information about affect. In prototype classification tasks, the high-symptom women used significantly more information about body size and significantly less information about affect. There were strong associations between individual differences in attention in the similarity task and decision making in the classification tasks. The study shows the potential utility of cognitive science methods for the study of cognitive factors in psychopathology.
Viken
Richard J
RJ
Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405-7007, USA. viken@indiana.edu
Treat
Teresa A
TA
Nosofsky
Robert M
RM
McFall
Richard M
RM
Palmeri
Thomas J
TJ
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001824:Body Constitution / Q000502:physiology; D001828:Body Image; D002032:Bulimia / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D019336:Cognitive Science; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D012650:Self Disclosure; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology