Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Anorexia Nervosa (AN) patients are characterized by an excessive restriction of their food-intake. Prior research using an Affective Simon Task (AST) with food as a task-irrelevant feature, provided evidence for the view that AN patients' ability to refrain from food is facilitated by reduced automatic approach tendencies towards food. However, because food was task-irrelevant (i.e., participants had to base their reaction on the perspective of the picture and not on its content), the findings may in fact reflect a relatively strong ability to ignore the content of the food stimuli rather than weakened approach towards food per se. Therefore, this study also included a Stimulus Response Compatibility (SRC) task with food as task-relevant feature that could not be ignored, because the required response depended on the [food vs non-food] content of the pictures.
METHODS: AN spectrum patients (n = 63), and a comparison group of adolescents without eating pathology (n = 57) completed both a SRC task with food as task-relevant feature, and an Affective Simon Task AST with food as task-irrelevant feature.
RESULTS: AN patients showed reduced approach tendencies for high caloric food. Only the SRC uniquely predicted the presence of AN.
LIMITATIONS: Comparison between tasks was hampered because the SRC only included high caloric food stimuli, whereas the AST included high and low caloric food stimuli.
CONCLUSION: Patients with AN are characterized by weakened automatic approach of high caloric food. This might 'help' restrict their food-intake even in a condition of starvation.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 101496 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry |
Volume | 65 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2019 |
Keywords
- AVOIDANCE
- Anorexia nervosa
- Approach bias
- Approach tendencies
- Avoidance
- CHILDREN
- EATING-DISORDERS
- Food
- HUNGER