title: Altered orienting of attention in anorexia nervosa.
abstract: The study of cognitive processes in anorexia nervosa (AN) is largely unexplored, although recent evidence suggests the presence of impairments in both social cognition and attention processing. Here we investigated AN patients' ability to orient attention in response to social and symbolic visual stimuli. AN patients and matched controls performed a task in which gaze and pointing gestures acted as social directional cues for spatial attention. Arrows were also included as symbolic cue. On each trial, a centrally-placed cue appeared oriented rightwards or leftwards. After either 200 or 700ms, a lateralized neutral target (a letter) requiring a discrimination response appeared in a location either spatially congruent or incongruent with the directional cue. Controls showed a reliable orienting irrespective of both temporal interval and cue type. AN patients showed a reliable orienting at both temporal intervals only in response to pointing gestures. Both gaze and arrow cues failed to orient attention at the short temporal interval, that is when attention is under reflexive control, whereas a reliable orienting emerged at the long temporal interval. These results provide preliminary evidence of altered reflexive orienting of attention in AN patients that does not extend to body-related cues such as pointing gestures.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. Electronic address: mario.dalmaso@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dalmaso
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy; Centro di Neuroscienze Cognitive, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Castelli
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Lorena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Franchetti
authors.affiliation: Centro per i Disturbi del Comportamento Alimentare, Casa di Cura Villa Margherita, Arcugnano, Vicenza, Italy.
authors.forename: Lorenza
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Carli
authors.affiliation: Centro per i Disturbi del Comportamento Alimentare, Casa di Cura Villa Margherita, Arcugnano, Vicenza, Italy.
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Todisco
authors.affiliation: Centro di Neuroscienze Cognitive, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy; Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Palomba
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy; Centro di Neuroscienze Cognitive, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Galfano
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anorexia nervosa; Social cognition; Spatial attention