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No evidence for a selective processing of subliminally presented body words in restrained eaters
Author(s) -
Jansen Anita,
Huygens Karin,
Tenney Nienke
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
international journal of eating disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.785
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1098-108X
pISSN - 0276-3478
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1098-108x(199812)24:4<435::aid-eat11>3.0.co;2-b
Subject(s) - stroop effect , psychology , body shape , information processing , attentional bias , cognition , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , selective attention , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , computer science
Objective In the present study, it was hypothesized that restrained eating subjects will show an attentional bias for body shape and weight words during the automatic stage of information processing and not during the strategic or controlled stage. Method Thirteen high restrained and fifteen low restrained eaters participated in the experiment. Body shape and weight words as well as neutral words were presented both supraliminally and subliminally during a computerized Stroop task. Results The high restrained eaters did not show distortions in the processing of body shape and weight stimuli; neither an early automatic processing priority nor a pattern of strategic processing selectivity characterizes restrained eaters. Discussion The absence of cognitive distortions in the processing of body shape and weight information might point to a qualitative difference between normal restrained eaters and subjects with eating disorders of clinical severity. © 1998 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 24: 435–438, 1998.