title: Social perception in people with eating disorders.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Social perception is a key aspect of social cognition which has so far not been investigated in eating disorders (ED). This study aimed to investigate social perception in individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN).
  
  
  METHODS
  Outpatients with AN (restricting subtype [AN-R]: n=51; binge-purge subtype [AN-BP]: n=26) or BN (n=57) and 50 healthy control (HC) participants completed the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT-15). This is an ecologically valid task, which consists of 15 video clips, depicting complex social situations relating to intimacy, status, kinship, competition and deception. The participants have to assess relationships between protagonists' based on non-verbal cues.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, there was no difference between groups on the IPT total score and subscale scores. Group differences on the Intimacy subscale approached significance so post hoc comparisons were carried out. HCs performed significantly better than AN-R participants in determining the degree of intimacy between others.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Social perception is largely preserved in ED patients. Individuals with AN-R show impairments in identifying intimacy in social situations, this may be due to the lack of relationship experience. Further research into different aspects of social cognition is required to establish the link between interpersonal difficulties and ED psychopathology.
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychological Medicine, Section of Eating Disorders, London, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Bethany.renwick@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Renwick
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dejong
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kenyon
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Samarawickrema
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Loomes
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Watson
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ghelani
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D012938:Social Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Anorexia nervosa; Bulimia nervosa; Eating disorders; Social cognition; Social perception