Visual perception and dissociation during Mirror Gazing Test in patients with anorexia nervosa: a preliminary study

Demartini, Benedetta; Nisticò, Veronica; Tedesco, Roberta; Marzorati, A.; Ferrucci, Roberta; Priori, Alberto; Gambini, Orsola; Caputo, Giovanni

doi:10.1007/s40519-020-00977-6

Cited by 11 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The association between body perception disturbances and body dissatisfaction is a well-known finding in EDs [62]. Similarly, dissociative features might play a fundamental role in producing body image distortions in patients with EDs [63].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Dissociation and Suicidality in Eating Disorders: The Mediating Function of Body Image Disturbances, and the Moderating Role of Depression and Anxiety

Lewis

Kapon

Enoch‐Levy

et al. 2021

JCM

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In patients with eating disorders (EDs), elevated dissociation may increase the risk of suicide. Bodily related disturbances, depression, and anxiety may intervene in the association between dissociation and suicidality. In this study we aimed to examine the influence of bodily related disturbances, depression, anxiety, severity of ED symptoms, body mass index (BMI), and type and duration of the ED on the relationship between elevated dissociation and elevated suicidality. The study included 172 inpatients: 65 with anorexia nervosa restricting type, 60 with anorexia nervosa binge/purge type, and 37 with bulimia nervosa. Participants were assessed using self-rating questionnaires for dissociation, suicidality, bodily related parameters, and severity of ED symptomatology, depression, and anxiety. We found that dissociation and suicidality were directly associated. In addition, depression and anxiety moderated the mediating role of body image parameters in the association between increased dissociation and increased suicidality. Thus, only in inpatients with high depression and anxiety, i.e., above the median range, body image disturbances were found to mediate the association between dissociation and suicidality. ED-related parameters did not moderate these relationships. Our study demonstrates that in inpatients with EDs, increased dissociation may be significantly associated with increased suicidality, both directly and via the intervening influence of body image, depression, and anxiety.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Dissociation and Suicidality in Eating Disorders: The Mediating Function of Body Image Disturbances, and the Moderating Role of Depression and Anxiety

Lewis

Kapon

Enoch‐Levy

et al. 2021

JCM

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“…Forthcoming studies will document the usefulness of mirror-gazing technique for understanding body-related psychopathologies. In particular, in mirror-gazing setup, the reports of patients suffering anorexia nervosa (AN) reflect strong dissociated self-identity (Demartini et al., 2020), whereas the reports of patients with functional movement disorder (FMD) and psychogenic non-epileptic seizure (PNES) reflect detachment and dissociated self-identity (Nisticò et al., 2020), respectively. In these psychopathologies, as well as in schizophrenia and body dysmorphic disorder, the mirror-gazing setup seems to be a useful tool for identifying state dissociation and AEs, beyond clinician tests of traits.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mirror- and Eye-Gazing: An Integrative Review of Induced Altered and Anomalous Experiences

Caputo

Lynn

Houran

2020

Imagination, Cognition and Personality

Self Cite

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We critically reviewed the protocols, results, and potential implications from empirical studies ( n = 44) on mirror-gazing (including the “psychomanteum”) and eye-to-eye gazing, both in healthy individuals and clinical patients, including studies of hypnotic mirrored self-misidentification, mirror-gazing in body dysmorphic disorder and schizophrenia. We found these methods to be effective for eliciting altered states or anomalous experiences under controlled conditions and in non-clinical samples. Mirror-gazing and eye-to-eye-gazing produced anomalous experiences almost exclusively in the visual, bodily, and self-identity modalities, whereas psychomanteum experiences tended also to involve voices, smells, and bodily touches. The complexity, diversity, and specificity in contents across these anomalous experiences suggest mechanisms beyond perceptual distortions or illusions. We argue that mirror- and eye-gazing anomalous perceptions implicate different mechanisms that induce (i) Derealization (anomalous perceptions of external reality); (ii) Depersonalization (anomalous perceptions of the body), and (iii) Dissociated identity (anomalous perceptions of another identity in place of the self in mirror-gazing or in place of the other in eye-to-eye gazing). These interpretations suggest directions for future researches.

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“…Five studies focussed on illusion validity, including phenomenology, methodology and mechanisms [1,[4][5][6][7]. Four studies assessed clinical groups [8][9][10][11]. Two prodromal studies investigated the relationship between SFIs and schizotypal personality traits in healthy adolescents [12,13].…”

Section: Fig 1 Prisma Flow Chartmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The MGT, Fig 3(A), involves a seated participant, positioned approximately 0.4m from a standard, frontal plane mirror positioned at eye-level. A light source is placed on the floor behind the participant, which contains a 20-watt incandescent bulb, resulting in a lux level of 0.8 lux (to 1 lux) at the face [1,4,5,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][18][19][20][21][22]. A variation of the MGT was conducted using a split-mirror made up of two mirrors, measuring 0.2 m by 0.4 m, which were mounted sideby-side with a 4 mm gap between them [6].…”

Section: The Mirror Gaze Task (Mgt)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, several studies have employed the MGT paradigm to induce dissociation and examine its negative impact on various cognitive domains, including attention and memory [18,19], emotional numbing [21], interoception [22] and guilt [20]. The specific role of dissociation in strange face illusions has been examined in recent studies [6,10,11,16,17], which suggest that different types of illusory faces emerge in relation to different dissociation subtypes.…”

Section: The Inter-personal Gazing Dyad Task (Igdt)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Strange face illusions: A systematic review and quality analysis

Mash¹,

Dean²,

Jenkinson³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Strange face illusions (SFIs) describe a range of visual apparitions that occur when an observer looks at their image reflected in a mirror (Mirror Gaze Task: MGT) or gazes at another’s face (Inter-personal Gazing Dyad Task: IGDT) in a dimly lit room. The illusory effects range from mild alterations in colour, or contrast, to the perception of distorted facial features, or new faces. The current review critically evaluates studies investigating SFIs, their methodological quality, and existing interpretations. Searches conducted using Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect and the grey literature up to June 2021 identified 20 studies (N= 874) meeting the inclusion criteria (i.e., providing new empirical evidence relating to SFIs) . Results are reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The review was preregistered at the Open Science Framework (OSF: https://osf.io/ek48d).Pooling data across studies, we report that SFIs are experienced by 67% (95% CI: 55-77) of nonclinical participants. Study quality was assessed using the Appraisal Tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (AXIS) and indicated that most studies (85%) were poor-to-fair quality. Study quality was inversely related to prevalence rates, accounting for almost half of the variance in reported SFI rates. We also report that age was positively related to prevalence rates, with more illusions reported by older samples. Our review suggests that the conditions required to induce strange face illusions appear to be reduced light levels, face stimuli and prolonged eye fixation.In conclusion, SFIs commonly occur in both the MGT and the IGDT paradigms. Current psychodynamic interpretations of SFIs as dissociative identities remain largely speculative and further research of higher quality is needed to establish the prevalence and mechanisms of SFIs more firmly.

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Visual perception and dissociation during Mirror Gazing Test in patients with anorexia nervosa: a preliminary study

Cited by 11 publications

References 56 publications

Dissociation and Suicidality in Eating Disorders: The Mediating Function of Body Image Disturbances, and the Moderating Role of Depression and Anxiety

Dissociation and Suicidality in Eating Disorders: The Mediating Function of Body Image Disturbances, and the Moderating Role of Depression and Anxiety

Mirror- and Eye-Gazing: An Integrative Review of Induced Altered and Anomalous Experiences

Strange face illusions: A systematic review and quality analysis

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