title: Memory updating in sub-clinical eating disorder: differential effects with food and body shape words.
abstract: The present study investigated how eating disorder (ED) relevant information is updated in working memory in people with high vs. low scores on a measure of eating disorder pathology (the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, EDE-Q). Participants performed two memory updating tasks. One was a neutral control task using digits; the other task involved food words and words relating to body-shape, and provided measures of updating speed and post-updating recall. We found that high EDE-Q participants (1) showed no sign of general memory updating impairment as indicated by performance in the control task; (2) showed a general recall deficit in the task involving ED-relevant stimuli, suggesting a general distraction of cognitive resources in the presence of ED-related items; (3) showed a relative facilitation in the recall of food words; and (4) showed quicker updating toward food words and relatively slower updating toward body-shape-related words. Results are discussed in the context of cognitive theories of eating disorders.
authors: The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
authors: Olivia
authors: O
authors: Fenton
authors: The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. Electronic address: ullrich.ecker@uwa.edu.au.
authors: Ullrich K H
authors: UK
authors: Ecker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cognitive biases; Eating disorder; Memory updating