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Emotional perception in eating disorders
Author(s) -
Joos Andreas A.B.,
Cabrillac Emmanuelle,
Hartmann Armin,
Wirsching Michael,
Zeeck Almut
Publication year - 2009
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/eat.20621
Subject(s) - sadness , psychology , anger , anorexia nervosa , perception , happiness , emotion perception , eating disorders , bulimia nervosa , anxiety , developmental psychology , emotion classification , clinical psychology , cognitive psychology , psychiatry , psychotherapist , neuroscience
Abstract Objective: It remains an open question whether there are basic emotional perception and emotional processing deficits in eating disorders (ED). The aim of this study was to explore deficits in emotional perception in restrictive anorexia nervosa (AN‐R) and bulimia nervosa (BN), using visual emotional stimuli. Method: Thirty‐four patients with ED (19 with BN and 15 with AN‐R) were compared with 25 controls. Visual stimuli from the international affective picture system were used. Results: Patients with AN‐R showed increased fear when confronted with stimuli containing anger, whereas patients with BN showed a tendency towards decreased fear. There were no other fundamental differences in the emotional perception of fear, happiness, sadness, and anger. Discussion: The finding of increased fear when exposed to the emotion of anger might be attributed to introversion and conflict avoidance of anorectic patients. No other basic deficiency of emotional perception was found. © 2008 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord, 2009