The effect of attention on body size adaptation and body dissatisfaction

Abstract

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.

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

“…The absence of association between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies contrasts with certain dot probe studies that report a positive association [31–33]. However, the results are consistent with other dot probe studies that found no evidence for an association [33–35].…”

“…Therefore, a laboratory setting may be necessary to detect this positive association. However, other dot probe studies conducted in a laboratory setting failed to find evidence for an association [33–35], and one study found similar results regardless of whether the study was completed online or in a laboratory setting [35]. Therefore, a laboratory setting is certainly not a sufficient condition for detecting a positive association.…”

“…Participants respond to a probe replacing one of the stimuli, and faster reaction times to probes replacing target stimuli compared to control stimuli are interpreted as an attentional bias towards target stimuli [30]. Some dot probe studies have found support for a positive association between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies [31–33], whereas other studies found no such evidence [33–35]. However, findings from these studies are potentially limited by their small samples sizes [33,34] and reduced number of dot probe trials [35].…”

“…Some dot probe studies have found support for a positive association between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies [31–33], whereas other studies found no such evidence [33–35]. However, findings from these studies are potentially limited by their small samples sizes [33,34] and reduced number of dot probe trials [35]. Further, many of the dot probe tasks used a stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA; the interval between the onset of the stimulus pair and the onset of the probe) of greater than or equal to 500 ms [31,32].…”

“…Another common feature of the discussed dot probe studies [31–35] is that they all presented White body stimuli to people in Western countries. Although body image disturbance was once considered culturally bound to Western societies, the globalization of Western media is thought to have contributed to body dissatisfaction and adoption of the thin-ideal in many non-Western countries [18,38].…”