Attentional biases to body shape images in adolescents with anorexia nervosa: An exploratory eye-tracking study

Body image distortion (BID) plays an important role in the etiology and maintenance of anorexia nervosa (AN). Previous studies of BID in AN showed small biases in visual scanning behavior (VSB) towards images of body shapes. The aim of this study is to investigate biases in VSB when body shape images compete with images with a different theme (social interactions) for subjects׳ attention. When images of thin body shapes (TBS) were presented alongside images of social interactions, AN patients (n=13) spent significantly more time looking at TBSs rather than at social interactions, but controls (n=20) did not. When images of fat body shapes (FBS) were presented alongside images of social interactions, AN patients spent significantly more time looking at FBSs rather than at social interactions, but controls did not. When images of TBSs, FBSs and social interactions were presented alongside each other, AN patients demonstrated a hierarchy in their attention allocation, choosing to spend the most viewing time on TBS images, followed by FBS images and then images with social interactions. Under the three experimental conditions, AN patients demonstrated large biases in their visual scanning behavior (VSB). Biases in VSB may provide physiologically objective measures that characterize patients with AN.