Attentional biases among body-dissatisfied young women: An ERP study with rapid serial visual presentation

In the current study, rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task combined with event related potentials (ERP) was used to investigate attention biases toward body-related words in a nonclinical sample of body dissatisfied females. Consistent with the hypotheses, the amplitudes of N100, N170 and P3 are sensitive to different body-related words in the RSVP paradigm only among body weight dissatisfied women (WD group), while control group did not show this difference. The early anterior N100 and bi-lateral parietal and occipital N170 amplitudes elicited by fatness-related words were larger than those elicited by thinness-related and neutral words among WD group, a finding which is consistent with the presence of a ‘negativity bias’. Also, WD group women showed significantly different amplitudes in response to three categories of stimuli with thin words eliciting the largest P3 amplitudes, followed by fat words and the least neutral words. The current findings indicated that attention biases toward body weight related words were evident during both sensory and cognitive stages of information processing. Findings are also consistent with hypotheses of cognitive-behavioral accounts of body weight dissatisfaction which propose, in part, that individual differences on cognitive tasks reveal underlying psychopathology; attentional biases reflect disordered body schema, not disordered eating, and can therefore be seen in non-clinical samples.

► The current ERP study explored attentional biases in bodyweight dissatisfied women.
► Attention biases to body related words were evident in sensory and cognitive stages.
► N1, N170 and P3 are sensitive to different body-words among body dissatisfied women.
► Individual differences on cognitive tasks reveal underlying psychopathology.
► Attentional biases could reflect disordered body-schema.