Reduced automatic motivational orientation towards food in restricting anorexia nervosa

A striking and characteristic feature of the restricting subtype of anorexia nervosa (AN) is that they are extremely successful in regulating their food intake in a destructive manner. A possible explanation for the persistent character of their restricted food intake could be a loss of the motivational saliency of food in restricting AN patients. The present study aimed to investigate motivational orientation for food in the restricting subtype of anorexia nervosa with an indirect performance-based measure and a self-report measure of craving. An indirect approach avoidance task was administered to measure automatic approach tendencies for high-fat and low-fat food in restricting adolescent AN-like patients (n=89) and a group of healthy adolescents (n=76). As predicted, restricting AN-like patients showed less automatic motivational orientation toward food than healthy controls. In a similar vein, AN-like patients reported less craving for food than the group of healthy controls. The loss of an automatic motivational orientation toward food together with the deliberate strategy to avoid food might help explain the ability of restricting AN-like patients to regulate their food intake.     

Assessment of emotional reactivity to food images in bulimia nervosa

The aim of the study was to assess the influence on reactivity to food images of the following variables: craving-trait, positive or negative mood state, and food restriction. Emotional modulation of the defense startle reflex (RMS) was assessed in 26 women at risk of suffering from bulimia nervosa; they were assigned one of to two groups: high craving-trait and low craving-trait. Before the test, positive or negative mood and restriction vs. non-restriction states were induced in each of the groups. Skin conductance response (SCR) and electromyogram activity from the orbiculari oculi region were recorded after the auditory stimuli; questionnaires such as Food Craving Trait Questionnaire (FCQ-T) and the Self-assessment Manikin (SAM) were used. Results showed that negative affect produced a negative valence of food images, more arousal, and more loss of control, as well as higher SCRs. Subjects with low FCQ-T levels reduced their RMS to food images as a consequence of experiencing positive emotions; when emotions were negative, their RMS increased.     

Body size over-estimation in women with anorexia nervosa is not qualitatively different from female controls

Over-estimation of body size is a cardinal feature of anorexia nervosa (AN), usually revealed by comparing individuals who have AN with non-AN individuals, the inference being that over-estimation is pathological. We show that the same result can be reproduced by sampling selectively from a single distribution of performance in body size judgement by comparing low BMI individuals with normal BMI individuals. Over-estimation of body size in AN is not necessarily pathological and can be predicted by normal psychophysical biases in magnitude estimation. We confirm this prediction in a dataset from a morphing study in which 30 women with AN and 137 control women altered a photograph of themselves to estimate their actual body size. We further investigated the relative contributions of sensory and attitudinal factors to body-size overestimation in a sample of 166 women. Our results suggest that both factors play a role, but their relative importance is task dependent.     

Intrusion errors in visuospatial working memory performance

This study tested the hypothesis that failure in active visuospatial working memory tasks involves a difficulty in avoiding intrusions due to information that is already activated. Two experiments are described, in which participants were required to process several series of locations on a 4 x 4 matrix and then to produce only the final location of each series. Results revealed a higher number of errors due to already activated locations (intrusions) compared with errors due to new locations (inventions). Moreover, when participants were required to pay extra attention to some irrelevant (non-final) locations by tapping on the table, intrusion errors increased. Results are discussed in terms of current models of working memory functioning.     

Intrusion errors in visuospatial working memory performance

This study tested the hypothesis that failure in active visuospatial working memory tasks involves a difficulty in avoiding intrusions due to information that is already activated. Two experiments are described, in which participants were required to process several series of locations on a 4 × 4 matrix and then to produce only the final location of each series. Results revealed a higher number of errors due to already activated locations (intrusions) compared with errors due to new locations (inventions). Moreover, when participants were required to pay extra attention to some irrelevant (non-final) locations by tapping on the table, intrusion errors increased. Results are discussed in terms of current models of working memory functioning.     

Roles of working memory capacity and long-term working memory skill in complex task performance

In the present research, we examined the relative roles of domain-general and domain-specific individual difference characteristics in complex cognitive task performance. Specifically, we examined the impact both of working memory (WM) capacity and of acquired skills used to encode presented information in an accessible form in long-term working memory (LTWM) on performance in a complex aviation task environment. Measures of WM capacity and LTWM skill served as performance predictors. A criterion measure of task performance was related to the predictor measures. The results indicated that an increase in LTWM skill decreases the role of WM capacity as the determinant of complex task performance, although both measures are important performance predictors. We discuss how the two distinct WM constructs coexist and interact to support complex task performance.     

Body images of patients with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and female control subjects: a comparison with male ideals of female attractiveness

Body images of female patients with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa were assessed against females without eating disorders and compared with male ideals of female attractiveness. A computer program was applied to examine body images of 62 patients with anorexia nervosa, 45 patients with bulimia nervosa, and 40 female and 39 male control subjects. Body size overestimation was most distinct in the two patient groups. Self-ideal discrepancy was highest in bulimia nervosa. Estimation of the society's ideal female body in all three female groups did not differ from men's perception of the most attractive female body. Congruence of ideals of female attractiveness in patients, female, and male control subjects and described differences between patients and female controls support the theory that body image disturbance is a problem of processing self-referential information regarding body image rather than a problem of processing body image related information per se.     

Catamnestic studies in patients with anorexia nervosa in puberty

Catamnestic studies ware performed on 15 subjects (13 female und 2 male) who were treated individually with Leonhard's method for puberal emaciation between 1960 and 1970. 14 of the patients, then children, now have a good physical status with normal weight, are coping well with life and are most cases married. One female patient died at age 31 years; when accepted for treatment 15 years ago there was some doubt regarding the diagnosis of a genuine puberal emaciation, and this doubt grew in the subsequent course of events. No connection could be found between her death and emaciation. We can thus consider that the success of individual treatment with Leonhard's method has been confirmed.     

Attachment predicts treatment completion in an eating disorders partial hospital program among women with anorexia nervosa

The goal of this study was to examine if attachment theory can provide a framework for understanding treatment completion in an eating disorders partial hospital program among women with anorexia nervosa (AN). Attachment was measured using the Attachment Styles Questionnaire (Feeney, Noller, & Hanrahan, 1994). As hypothesized, self-reports of high avoidant attachment predicted noncompletion of treatment for those with AN binge-purge subtype (ANB). However, this relationship did not emerge for those with AN restricting subtype (ANR). Also as hypothesized, self-reports of high anxious attachment predicted completing treatment for those with ANB but not for those with ANR. For completers with ANB and ANR, the program was helpful in increasing body weight and lowering drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, interpersonal problems, and depression. Attachment avoidance, characterized by devaluing one's need for relationships, may be a contraindication for group-based partial hospital treatment of ANB. Attachment anxiety, characterized by high preoccupation with relationships, may facilitate remaining in treatment for those with ANB.     

The experience of feeling fat for women with anorexia nervosa: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

Feeling fat has been implicated as a maintenance factor in anorexia nervosa (AN), despite limited research into the experience. This study expanded the literature by exploring the lived experience of feeling fat for women with a diagnosis of AN. Seven women participated in this study and data was collected through semi-structured interviews. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed to explore the participants’ experience of ‘feeling fat’ and its relevance for clinical treatment. Four main themes emerged from the data: ‘negative sense of self’, ‘feeling out of control’, ‘coping with feeling fat’, and ‘making sense of feeling fat is complex’. These results highlight feeling fat as a significant experience and maintenance factor for women with a diagnosis of AN. Implications for addressing feeling fat within psychological therapy are explored.     

Empathy in families of women with borderline personality disorder, anorexia nervosa, and a control group

This is a study of empathy in the families of 27 women with borderline personality disorder (BPD), 28 women with restricting anorexia nervosa (AN), and 27 women without a clinical diagnosis (NC). The daughters and both parents responded to the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), an instrument for assessing four dimensions of empathy. In addition, they were personally interviewed, with the Family Interview for Protectiveness and Empathy (FIPE), about the extent of empathy expressed by the parents to their daughter during her development. On the IRI, women with BPD scored highest on the immature and lowest on the mature aspects of empathy, whereas scores of AN and NC women were all within normal limits. Parents of BPDs had the lowest IRI scores, while parents of AN and NC groups were similar to each other and to criterion group scores. IRI scores of AN daughters were positively correlated with their parents' scores whereas BPDs' scores were negatively correlated with those of their parents. There were no correlations between the IRI scores of NC subjects and their parents. On the FIPE, borderline daughters and parents agreed about the relative absence of empathic parenting, whereas AN and NC daughters and parents agreed as to the presence of empathic parenting. The theoretical and clinical implications of these contrasting findings are discussed.     

Operant reinforcement with structural family therapy in treating anorexia nervosa

Abstract

This paper integrates clinical data gathered through psychotherapy with dual-career couples and research findings from social psychology and sociology. The paper's main focus is the clinical understanding and therapeutic interventions most appropriate for these couples' marital and individual difficulties. The paper briefly describes characteristics of the dual-career lifestyle and personalities. The analysis provides case examples illustrating external and internal sources of stress generated by a lack of time or the need for an effective system for handling housework and childcare.     

Running with emotion: When affective content hampers working memory performance

This study tested the hypothesis that affective content may undermine rather than facilitate working memory (WM) performance. To this end, participants performed a running WM task with positive, negative and neutral words. In typical running memory tasks, participants are presented with lists of unpredictable length and are asked to recall the last three or four items. We found that accuracy with affective words decreased as lists lengthened, whereas list length did not influence recall of neutral words. We interpreted this pattern of results in terms of a limited resource model of WM in which valence represents additional information that needs to be manipulated, especially in the context of difficult trials.     

Low diversity and low frequency of participation in leisure activities compromise working memory efficiency in young adults

People perform leisure activities (LA) every day; pursuits that entail applying cognitive, physical and social abilities. As in old age, doing LA during early and middle adulthood is related to a reduced risk of dementias, probably by generating a cognitive reserve. As it is possible that a relation between doing LA and working memory (WM) efficiency exists in young adults, we assessed whether the diversity and frequency of LA are related to WM efficiency in this population. Ninety-three healthy young subjects solved the n-back task at two levels of difficulty (2, 3), and answered an LA questionnaire on the activities in which they had participated in the month prior to the experiment. Subjects were classified separately on their scores for (1) diversity (high/low) and (2) frequency (high/low) in order to test the relation between each variable and WM efficiency. Though no differences were found, a subsequent analysis of the average of diversity and frequency ratios of LA performance taken together-the diversity/frequency index-showed that low diversity plus low frequency was significantly associated with reduced WM efficiency at this age; results that suggest that frequent participation in diverse LA during youth is related to WM efficiency.     

Subliminal priming with nearly perfect performance in the prime-classification task

The subliminal priming paradigm is widely used by cognitive scientists, and claims of subliminal perception are common nowadays. Nevertheless, there are still those who remain skeptical. In a recent critique of subliminal priming, Pratte and Rouder (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71, 1276-1283, 2009) suggested that previous claims of subliminal priming may have been due to a failure to control the task difficulty between the experiment proper and the prime-classification task. Essentially, because the prime-classification task is more difficult than the experiment proper, the prime-classification task results may underrepresent the subjects' true ability to perceive the prime stimuli. To address this possibility, prime words were here presented in color. In the experiment proper, priming was observed. In the prime-classification task, subjects reported the color of the primes very accurately, indicating almost perfect control of task difficulty, but they could not identify the primes. Thus, I conclude that controlling for task difficulty does not eliminate subliminal priming.     

The role of working memory in motor learning and performance

Three experiments explore the role of working memory in motor skill acquisition and performance. Traditional theories postulate that skill acquisition proceeds through stages of knowing, which are initially declarative but later procedural. The reported experiments challenge that view and support an independent, parallel processing model, which predicts that procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired separately and that the former does not depend on the availability of working memory, whereas, the latter does. The behaviour of these two processes was manipulated by providing or withholding visual (and auditory) appraisal of outcome feedback. Withholding feedback was predicted to inhibit the use of working memory to appraise success and, thus, prevent the formation of declarative knowledge without affecting the accumulation of procedural knowledge. While the first experiment failed to support these predictions, the second and third experiments demonstrated that procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired independently. It is suggested that the availability of working memory is crucial to motor performance only when the learner has come to rely on its use.     

Children's working memory: investigating performance limitations in complex span tasks

Three experiments investigated the roles of resource-sharing and intrinsic memory demands in complex working memory span performance in 7- and 9-year-olds. In Experiment 1, the processing complexity of arithmetic operations was varied under conditions in which processing times were equivalent. Memory span did not differ as a function of processing complexity. In Experiment 2, complex memory span was assessed under three conditions designed to vary both processing and intrinsic storage demands: mental arithmetic (significant attentional demands-requires storage), odd/even judgments (significant attentional demands-no storage required), and articulatory suppression (minimal attentional demands--no storage required). The highest memory spans were found in the articulatory suppression task. Span was at an intermediate level with arithmetic processing and was lowest for processing involving odd/even judgments. This difference in memory span for processing tasks involving arithmetic processing and odd/even judgments was eliminated in Experiment 3 when the pacing requirements of the arithmetic and odd/even processing tasks were equated. The results are consistent with the view that complex memory span performance is disrupted by processing activities that divert attentional resources from storage.