Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

uu.sePublications from Uppsala University
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
The Role of Cognitive Processes in Eating Pathology
Uppsala University, Humanistisk-samhällsvetenskapliga vetenskapsområdet, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology.
2006 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Researchers have recently combined clinical and cognitive areas of research in order to investigate the role of cognitive factors in explaining how emotional disorders are developed and maintained. It is believed that biased cognitive processing of emotionally relevant information can greatly affect emotional responses and behaviour where insights into such cognitive processes can have invaluable clinical implications.

The present thesis investigates the role of cognitive biases for information related to food and body appearance in individuals with eating disorders (ED) and those with non-clinically eating disorder-related concerns (NED). Are ED characterised by cognitive biases toward such information related to their specific concerns? Are such cognitive biases specific to clinical ED or present also in NED samples? Are cognitive biases operating at both conscious and unconscious levels of cognitive processing?

The tasks used to pursue these questions were: the emotional Stroop task, an Internet version of the emotional Stroop, Jacoby’s white noise paradigm and a recognition task. The influence of priming on the emotional Stroop task was also investigated in order to test whether the use of this task could be extended to more complex investigations than selective attention.

Results provide support for that cognitive processing of information related to eating and body appearance is biased in individuals with ED. It is, however, unclear whether such biased processing is specific to clinical ED. Findings further suggest that cognitive biases occur primarily at unconscious levels of cognitive processing. Support was also obtained for that the emotional Stroop task is sensitive to priming where initial body perception may be one factor influencing cognitive responses toward negative self referent words following exposure to thin ideal images. Results further suggest that the emotional Stroop task successfully can be administered via the Internet where manipulating task delivery and response mode may increase the sensitivity of this task. Some of the advantages of administering the emotional Stroop task via Internet over traditional methods are access to more heterogeneous samples, more ecologically valid situations, reduced costs and minimisation of demand characteristics.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Universitetsbiblioteket , 2006. , p. 74
Series
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Social Sciences, ISSN 1652-9030 ; 16
Keywords [en]
eating disorders, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, emotional Stroop task, implicit memory, explicit memory, Jacoby's white noise task
National Category
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-7153ISBN: 91-554-6658-3 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-7153DiVA, id: diva2:168893
Public defence
2006-11-03, IV, Universitetshuset, 740 10, Uppsala, 13:15
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2006-10-10 Created: 2006-10-10Bibliographically approved
List of papers
1. Attentional bias for negative self-words in young women. The role of thin ideal priming and body shape dissatisfaction
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Attentional bias for negative self-words in young women. The role of thin ideal priming and body shape dissatisfaction
2005 In: Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 38, no 3, p. 723-733Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-94880 (URN)
Available from: 2006-10-10 Created: 2006-10-10Bibliographically approved
2. Stroop interference for food- and body-related words: a meta-analysis
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Stroop interference for food- and body-related words: a meta-analysis
2005 In: Eating Behaviors, Vol. 6, no 3, p. 271-281Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-94881 (URN)
Available from: 2006-10-10 Created: 2006-10-10Bibliographically approved
3. Emotional Stroop via Internet among individuals with eating disorders
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Emotional Stroop via Internet among individuals with eating disorders
2008 (English)In: Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, ISSN 0036-5564, E-ISSN 1467-9450, Vol. 49, no 1, p. 69-76Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The present study investigated whether Stroop interference in eating disordered individuals for food - and body-related words, as repeatedly found previously using standard emotional Stroop tasks, would also be demonstrated when using an Internet based emotional Stroop task. Participants were anorexic women (n = 13), bulimic women (n = 20), non-clinically eating disordered women nevertheless over-concerned about eating and body appearance (n = 27) and normal control women (n = 31). Bulimic individuals showed Stroop interference for body-related words whereas anorexic individuals showed Stroop interference for food-related words. The present results thus suggest that administration of the emotional Stroop task is possible via the Internet. Furthermore, it is possible that the time consuming response delivery, relative to previous studies, could lead to Stroop interference only for the most emotionally significant information, in turn, differentiating between the core concerns of anorexic and bulimic individuals.

Keywords
Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating, Stroop facilitation, Stroop interference
National Category
Psychology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-94882 (URN)10.1111/j.1467-9450.2007.00606.x (DOI)000252210300008 ()18190404 (PubMedID)
Available from: 2006-10-10 Created: 2006-10-10 Last updated: 2022-01-28Bibliographically approved
4. Implicit memory bias for eating- and body appearance-related sentences in eating disorders
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Implicit memory bias for eating- and body appearance-related sentences in eating disorders
Article in journal (Refereed) Submitted
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-94883 (URN)
Available from: 2006-10-10 Created: 2006-10-10Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(418 kB)3730 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 418 kBChecksum MD5
95f2f20fe1aa6f81c56270bf620c1a599105e370f5fbb02d1abf20785e54fb50ca9fa95e
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf
cover(428 kB)73 downloads
File information
File name COVER01.pdfFile size 428 kBChecksum MD5
a55881a99c4b9e6e45c175feab453e5cd4a49226b81152ce7e258eba8a1a3f13b71a76af
Type coverMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
Department of Psychology
Psychology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 3742 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

isbn
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

isbn
urn-nbn
Total: 3213 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf