Behavioral and electrophysiological measures of the body inversion effect

Abstract

Previous behavioral and electrophysiological studies examining the body inversion effect, where inversion of a body stimulus reduces its recognition, suggested that information regarding human bodies is processed configurally. However, few studies to date have examined how the magnitude of the body inversion effect may be impacted by varying degrees of configural information present in a stimulus of interest. In the current study, upright and inverted body stimuli were presented across three body posture conditions, the whole body, piecemeal body (without head and trunk), and random body posture conditions, while response times, error rates, and event-related potentials were recorded. Behavioral measures and assessment of the N170 component, particularly at occipital-temporal site, revealed a robust difference between upright and inverted postures for both the whole body and piecemeal body posture conditions, which was not observed in the random body posture condition. The behavioral measure showed less errors and faster reaction times for upright compared with inverted orientation; however, the N170 component only showed typical effect of orientation (more negative and more delayed peak in waveform for the inverted compared with upright orientation) in the left hemisphere. The magnitude and direction of these differences were comparable for whole body and piecemeal postures. Overall, these results were consistent with the notion that it is the first-order information of body posture rather than the presence of the head (and trunk) that determines the body inversion effect.

Parameters of visual processing abnormalities in adults with body image concerns

“…The influence of stimulus presentation duration and stimulus discrimination difficulty during the body-inversion task on this perceptual bias was also examined. Consistent with previous research [ 48 – 49 ] an overall standard inversion effect was found for all healthy participants, as upright stimuli were processed more accurately than inverted stimuli. However, as hypothesised, this inversion effect was significantly weaker for those with high, as compared to low, BIC.…”

“…This has been supported by research suggesting that the inversion effect weakens or disappears for headless body images, highlighting the significant role that faces play [ 28 , 29 , 30 ]. Nevertheless, this has not been well replicated, as other studies have shown substantial and similar inversion effects for both faces and headless bodies [ 6 , 31 , 32 ]. Similarly, literature has also suggested that bodies, like faces, are processed holistically and result in similar inversion effects [ 33 , 34 , 35 ].…”

Abnormalities in the Visual Processing of Viewing Complex Visual Stimuli Amongst Individuals With Body Image Concern

“…The N170 is thought to be produced by the generation of global face configurations at the later stages of structural encoding ( Jacques & Rossion, 2007 ), while a delayed peak is elicited by images lacking these global features ( Eimer, 2000 ). Neurophysiological studies have also demonstrated similar irregularities in the N170 peak for body and object stimuli ( Rossion, Joyce, Cottrell, & Tarr, 2003 ; Tao, Zeng, & Sun, 2014 ).…”

Body-Posture Recognition by Undergraduate Students Majoring in Physical Education and Other Disciplines

“…These findings suggest that body postures may be processed in the configural manner, similar to face-processing, and that when body posture is inverted, participants exhibit impairments in processing such configural information (Reed et al, 2003). Research has demonstrated that these can be seen for a variety of different types of body postures (Brandman and Yovel, 2010;Tao et al, 2014;Arizpe et al, 2017). Electrophysiological studies demonstrate that, when body postures are inverted, the N170 component is delayed and its magnitude is enhanced (Minnebusch and Daum, 2009;Tao et al, 2014).…”

“…Research has demonstrated that these can be seen for a variety of different types of body postures (Brandman and Yovel, 2010;Tao et al, 2014;Arizpe et al, 2017). Electrophysiological studies demonstrate that, when body postures are inverted, the N170 component is delayed and its magnitude is enhanced (Minnebusch and Daum, 2009;Tao et al, 2014). In addition, to identify the specific part of the body that contributes to the inversion effect, studies have found that the body-inversion effect is eliminated when the head is removed from body-posture stimuli (Brandman and Yovel, 2010;Mohamed et al, 2011).…”