The effect of an odd-one-out visual search task on attentional bias, body size adaptation, and body dissatisfaction.

Body image disturbance is a both a risk factor for, and a symptom of, many eating disorders and refers to the misperception of and dissatisfaction with one's own body. Women with high body dissatisfaction have been shown to direct more attention to low body mass index (BMI) bodies, which results in the overestimation of body size via body size adaptation. Therefore, attention may have a causal role in body image disturbance. We conducted a novel training visual search task with 142 young adult women who we trained to attend to either high or low BMI bodies. We assessed the effects of this training on attention to bodies of different sizes, body size adaptation, and body dissatisfaction. Women trained to attend to low BMI bodies decreased their perceptions of a 'normal' body size via adaptation from pre- to post-training (p < 0.001); however, women trained to attend to high BMI bodies showed no change in their perception of a 'normal' body size. We found no lasting effects of the training on attention to body size or body dissatisfaction; however, our visual search task showed poor internal consistency as a measure of attention. These findings indicate that attention to low BMI bodies may exacerbate body image disturbance in women. However, more reliable measures of attentional are required to confirm this finding.

The relationship between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies in Malaysian Chinese and White Australian women: a dot probe study.

Studies suggest that an attentional bias to thin bodies is common among those with high levels of body dissatisfaction, which is a risk factor for, and symptom of, various eating disorders. However, these studies have predominantly been conducted in Western countries with body stimuli involving images of White people. In a preregistered study, we recruited 150 Malaysian Chinese women and 150 White Australian women for a study using standardized images of East Asian and White Australian bodies. To measure attentional bias to thin bodies, participants completed a dot probe task which presented images of women who self-identified their ethnicity as East Asian or as White Australian. Contrary to previous findings, we found no evidence for an association between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies. This lack of association was not affected by participant ethnicity (Malaysian Chinese versus White Australian) or ethnic congruency between participants and body stimuli (own-ethnicity versus other-ethnicity). However, the internal consistency of the dot probe task was poor. These results suggest that either the relationship between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies is not robust, or the dot probe task may not be a reliable measure of attentional bias to body size.

Is body dissatisfaction related to an attentional bias towards low weight bodies in non-clinical samples of women? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Body dissatisfaction is defined as the negative subjective evaluation of one's body and is considered a risk factor for, and symptom of, eating disorders. Some studies show women with high body dissatisfaction display an attentional bias towards low weight bodies; however, this finding is not consistent, and results are yet to be systematically synthesised. We conducted a qualitative and quantitative synthesis of cross-sectional studies investigating the relationship between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to low weight bodies in non-clinical samples of women. We searched PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, ProQuest, and OpenGrey for studies up until September 2022. We identified 34 eligible studies involving a total of 2857 women. A meta-analysis of 26 studies (75 effects) found some evidence from gaze tracking studies for a positive association between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to low weight bodies. We found no evidence for an association from studies measuring attention using the dot probe task, electroencephalogram (EEG) recording, or the modified spatial cueing task. The results together provide partial support for the positive association between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to low weight bodies in women. These findings can be used to inform future attentional bias research.

The effect of attention on body size adaptation and body dissatisfaction.

Attentional bias to low-fat bodies is thought to be associated with body dissatisfaction-a symptom and risk factor of eating disorders. However, the causal nature of this relationship is unclear. In three preregistered experiments, we trained 370 women to attend towards either high- or low-fat body stimuli using an attention training dot probe task. For each experiment, we analysed the effect of the attention training on (i) attention to subsequently presented high- versus low-fat body stimuli, (ii) visual adaptation to body size, and (iii) body dissatisfaction. The attention training had no effect on attention towards high- or low-fat bodies in an online setting (Experiment 1), but did increase attention to high-fat bodies in a laboratory setting (Experiment 2). Neither perceptions of a 'normal' body size nor levels of body dissatisfaction changed as a result of the attention training in either setting. The results in the online setting did not change when we reduced the stimulus onset-asynchrony of the dot probe task from 500 to 100 ms (Experiment 3). Our results provide no evidence that the dot probe training task used here has robust effects on attention to body size, body image disturbance or body dissatisfaction.