Selective Handling of Information in Patients Suffering from Restrictive Anorexia in an Emotional Stroop Test and a Word Recognition Test

Abstract

Several studies have been carried out using the Stroop test in eating disorders. Some of these studies have brought to light the existence of cognitive and attention deficits linked principally to weight and to food in anorexic and bulimic patients. The aim of the current study is to replicate and to clarify the existence of cognitive and attention deficits in anorexic patients using the Stroop test and a word recognition test. The recognition test is made up of 160 words; 80 words from the previous Stroop experiment mixed at random and matched from a semantic point of view to 80 distractions. The recognition word test is carried out 2 or 3 days after the Stroop test. Thirty-two subjects took part in the study: 16 female patients hospitalised for anorexia nervosa and 16 normal females as controls. Our results do not enable us to confirm the existence of specific cognitive deficits in anorexic patients.

Neuropsychology of eating disorders: 1995–2012

“…They did so by means of a focused attention task as a measure of the Eriksen effect 11. With regard to selective attention (intentional, focused attention), the Stroop Test, in its modified version (Emotional Stroop), and a word-recognition test did not enable the authors to confirm specific cognitive deficits in AN patients 12. Following this emotional Stroop paradigm, significant main effects of group (patients versus controls) and condition (xxxx [words made of xxxxs] neutral, fat, thin), and a significant interaction between group and condition have been reported.…”

Anorexia nervosa: Selective processing of food‐related word and pictorial stimuli in recognition and free recall tests

“…22,23 In contrast, previous studies of anorexia nervosa (AN) have only begun to provide insight into eating-disorder-related memory bias. 1,2,5,[24][25][26] In AN, a memory bias has been demonstrated in the explicit recall (''effortful information processing'') of food, 2 anorexia-nervosarelated word stimuli 24 and self-referential-encoded fatness stimuli, 25 but not in recognition 1 (''automatic information processing'') or implicit memory tasks. 24 A self-referential encoding of eating-disorder-related stimuli appears to lead to a selective processing and a greater retrieval of these stimuli in anorectic patients as compared with controls on the basis of schema-based processing.…”

“…Psychological symptoms are reflected in a refusal to eat or maintain weight, a fear of becoming fat, a disturbance of body image and a persistent preoccupation with thoughts of food and body weight. 1,2 In particular, high-caloric food is seen to represent a potent aversive stimulus for anorectic patients resulting in phobic avoidance. 3,4 Cognitive factors are assumed to play a pivotal role in the maintenance of eating disorders.…”

What can Cognitive Neuroscience Teach us about Anorexia Nervosa?

“…In these tasks, the color words were replaced with words related to food or body image. These studies, too, have yielded mixed results, but tend to suggest that attention is impaired in AN when the task stimulus is illness related [17-19]. This idea is compelling, as selective attention to body image information may contribute to the persistence of an eating disorder in a culture saturated with messages emphasizing dieting and thinness.…”