title: Altered Visual Adaptation to Body Shape in Eating Disorders: Implications for Body Image Distortion.
abstract: Previous research has shown that after adapting to a thin body, healthy participants (HP) perceive pictures of their own bodies as being fatter and vice versa. This aftereffect might contribute to the development of perceptual body image disturbances in eating disorders (ED).In the present study, HP and ED completed a behavioral experiment to rate manipulated pictures of their own bodies after adaptation to thin or fat body pictures. After adapting to a thin body, HP judged a thinner than actual body picture to be the most realistic and vice versa, resembling a typical aftereffect. ED only showed such an adaptation effect when they adapted to fat body pictures.The reported results indicate a relationship between body image distortion in ED and visual body image adaptation. It can be suspected that due to a pre-existing, long-lasting adaptation to thin body shapes in ED, an additional visual adaption to thin body shapes cannot be induced. Hence this pre-existing adaptation to thin body shapes could induce perceptual body image distortions in ED.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Goethe University Hospital, Frankfurt, Germany hmohr@em.uni-frankfurt.de.
authors.forename: Harald M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Mohr
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Goethe University Hospital, Frankfurt, Germany; Sigmund-Freud-Institut, Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Constanze
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rickmeyer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurocognitive Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hummel
authors.affiliation: Sigmund-Freud-Institut, Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Mareike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ernst
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Goethe University Hospital, Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Ralph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Grabhorn
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adaptation; body image; body shape; eating disorders; psychophysics