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An experimental study of the effect of mood on body size perception.

The study presented is an experimental investigation of the effect of mood on body size perception. Female students estimated their body size and indicated their degree of dissatisfaction with their body size before and after the induction of a negative or positive mood state. Compared with women who received the positive induced mood, the induction of low mood led to greater disturbances in body size perception in the form of a tendency to overestimate their body size more and significantly greater dissatisfaction with their body size. Furthermore, among the women who received the negative mood condition, compared with those with little or no concern with their body shape, for those with such concerns the induction of low mood led to greater disturbances in body size perception in the form of overestimating their body size significantly more and a tendency towards greater dissatisfaction with their body size. These findings suggest that depressed mood may play an important role in determining the extent of disturbance in body size perception in clinical populations.

Adult

Body size perception and body satisfaction in restrained and unrestrained eaters.

In 21 restrained and 20 unrestrained eaters body size perception was measured using the video distortion technique (VDT), the image marking procedure (IMP) and the kinesthetic size estimating apparatus (KSEA). Body satisfaction was assessed by questionnaires (Body Shape Questionnaire, Dieting scale of the Eating Attitudes Test). Restrained eaters showed no systematic over- or underestimation of the body size but less perceptual accuracy (in VDT and KSEA). Furthermore, they were clearly more dissatisfied with their bodies than unrestrained eaters. Both findings were unrelated to each other. In both groups depressive mood or thoughts seemed to be associated with body dissatisfaction but not with body size misperception. Objective body measures (body mass index, body fat content) were not related to either body size perception or body satisfaction. The findings suggest that a perceptual uncertainty in regard to body size (either for visual or for somatosensory aspects) has already developed in restrained eaters, which may constitute a predisposition for more overt forms of body size misperception as found in eating disorder patients.

Behavior Therapy

Perception of size of one object among many.

Adaptation to a grating of properly chosen frequency may lead to two apparently conflicting observations: Another grating may then appear to be of increased frequency (compared with its "unadapted" frequency) while the individual bars of the grating appear to have widened. This perceived widening parallels previous results with single bars. By attending to only one grating bar, the subject effectively seems to change the grating frequency spectrum to that of a single bar.

Adaptation, Physiological

Pictorial perspective: perception of size, linear, and texture perspective in children and adults.

Perception of size, linear, and texture perspective was investigated in third-grade and sixth-grade children and in college adults in three separate studies. A matching task required the observer to choose from a set of four alternative real scenes the correct match for the test stimulus, which was either a picture or a real scene. Correct performance required that the subject utilize perspective information for both size and distance distance relations. Erroneous choices available to the subject indicated errors in size judgement, in distance judgment, or in both simultaneously. View was either restricted at the correct station point or was free, with head motion. There were no significant effects of grade level. For all three groups, mean percent correct was nearly 100% with the real-scene test stimuli, and significantly below the chance level with the picture test stimuli. Errors in size judgment occurred most frequently, indicating that the geometrically correct rate of perspective convergence was too rapid to be seen by the subjects as perceptually acceptable. With size-perspective information alone, the number of size plus distance errors also increased significantly. There was no significant effect of viewing condition.

Adult

Shifts in perception of size after adaptation to gratings.

After viewing a suitable grating of vertical stripes for 5 minutes, subjects overestimated the width of a rectangle by 6 percent. The shifts in perception of size occurred whether individual stripes in the grating were narrower than, equal to, or wider than the rectangle. Rectangle width was underestimated only if the grating stripes were extremely wide, with a spatial frequency lower than most of the effective amplitude spectrum of the rectangle. These findings (and complementary ones with horizontal gratings) suggest that the visual system codes size on the basis of spatial frequency components, rather than directly in terms of width.

Adaptation, Physiological

Field dependence and the role of visual frameworks in the perception of size.

The extent to which apparent size is relationally determined has been studied by Rock and Ebenholtz and by Wenderoth, who came to widely differing conclusions as to the magnitude of this phenomenon. In both studies, a large range of individual differences was observed. In the present study, an attempt was made to account for variations in the influence of visual contexts on the perception of size by relating them to the cognitive style dimension of field dependence/independence. In two situations, relativelyfield-dependent observers made size judgments which were influenced by a frame surrounding the target figure, while relatively field-independent observers made size judgments which were influenced by a frame surrounding the target figure, while relatively field-independent observers tended to be less influenced by the frame, making their judgments approximate the retinal size of the target. The results suggest that assessment of the magnitude of the relational determination of apparent size must consider the cognitive style of the observers as well as situational variations.

Field Dependence-Independence

Fixed set in the perception of size in relation to lightness.

When control subjects compared the sizes of two circles of different lightness, the lightness-size illusion was observed, i.e., the darker circle was perceived to be smaller. However, after experimental subjects were shown a large, light circle and a smaller, darker circle repeatedly, the subjective size of the dark circle increased. It decreased after repeated exposures to a small, light circle and a large, dark one. These changes in perception were assumed to be contrast effects produced by an experimentally fixed set and were similar to changes observed when the same method was previously applied by this author to the size-weight illusion. Despite differences in modality and dimension of perception, every application of the fixed-set method resulted in analogous patterns. When the situation of the set-fixing experiment and that of the critical experiment were similar to each other, the fixed set was activated more and greater contrast effects were produced.

Adaptation, Physiological

Transformation theory of size judgment.

Perception of size is assessed by having observers adjust a comparison target at a fixed distance to match the size of a standard located at different distances. Results depend on instructions, target orientation, and available stimulus cues. A mathematical theory assumes that the brain performs an inverse transformation on the proximal information impinging on the retina to recover the original distal size of the target. Results depend on the target visual angle, and the effective target distance and orientation applied in performing the inverse transformation. Effective values are linked to instructions, target location, and stimulus cues. Two models are developed and successfully fit to empirical data. One emphasizes the distance parameter; the second, the orientation parameter.

Attention

Perception of size and lightness of human observers: two criteria for holistic and analytic processing show no correlation in individuals.

Results of a triad-classification task and a multidimensional-scaling (MDS) experiment are compared for individual observers. Both paradigms are designed to reveal whether stimuli are perceived in a holistic or analytic manner (Garner 1974). Subjects differed substantially and consistently in their triad classification pattern. The majority of subjects selected stimuli according to dimensional criteria; this classification type is thought to indicate an analytic stimulus processing. Approximately one third of subjects, however, used a classification according to overall similarity (indicating holistic processing). Except for the very first session, virtually no intermediate classification occurred. This clear separation into two classification types suggests that there actually exist two strongly preferred processing modes. Intraindividual variability between sessions in general was small. In one case, however, a spontaneous switching from a purely dimensional classification to a purely similarity classification occurred. This indicates that the observers have different processing options at their disposal, and are not forced to use a particular processing mode by the stimulus type--as has been supposed in the original concept of integrality/separability of stimuli (Garner 1974). In the MDS experiment also substantial interindividual differences in the "best-fitting" Minkowski metric were found, indicating different processing types. However, for individuals participating in both experiments, there was no correlation between the results of the two experimental paradigms. This is interpreted as a result of the subject's ability to choose between a few perceptual-processing options.

Central Nervous System

The role of instructions and familiar size in absolute judgments of size and distance.

The effects of familiar size and instructions (apparent, objective) on direct reports of size and distance were evaluated. Subjects estimated the size and distance of two different-sized playing cards or two unfamiliar stimuli under either apparent or objective instructions. The stimuli were presented successively at a distance of 5.48 m under reduced-cue conditions. The form of the instructions selectively influenced the effect of familiar size on absolute judgments of size and distance, with apparent instructions minimizing, and objective instructions promoting, familiar-size effects. The ratio of the distance judgments of the first to the second presented stimuli approximated the relative retinal sizes of the two objects under both apparent and objective instructions, while the ratio of size judgments tended to be either influenced by or independent of the object's relative retinal sizes under apparent and objective instructions, respectively. These results are consistent with Gogel's theory of off-size perception and, in particular, with the claim that, in comparison with apparent instructions, objective instructions are more likely to direct observers to base their judgments on cognitive, as opposed to perceptual, sources of spatial information.

Adult

Body image of sexually and physically abused children.

Body size perception was measured in 41 children aged 6-10 who had been either sexually or physically abused, or had no history of abuse. Two psychophysical methods were used, including the staircase method and a signal detection method. In the staircase methodology, children adjusted the direction of distortion of their continuously changing body size. In the signal detection method, children made judgments about the presence or absence of size distortion in presented images. Results using the staircase method indicated children overestimated their body sizes, with no differences between abuse conditions, gender, or age. For the signal detection methodology, no difference in ability to detect the presence/absence of size distortion (d') was found between abuse conditions, although females were less accurate than males. All groups were better able to detect distortion when the image was distorted too wide. Measures of response bias (Ln beta) indicated that sexually abused children had a greater bias to report size distortion as present, as compared with the physically abused children.

Body Image

Pictorial depth and related constancy effects as a function of recognition.

It is argued that while pictorial cues must be fundamental in the perception of an extended ground plane in daily life (and, by definition, in the perception of depth in pictures), the traditional pictorial cues such as perspective or texture gradients are neither a necessary nor a sufficient basis for it. That they are not necessary was shown by experiments in which such cues were eliminated from pictures representing a scene in depth. Illusory size perception based on localization of objects in depth in such pictures nonetheless occurred. That they are not sufficient was shown by experiments in which photographs of grassy fields did not yield impressions of depth or related size illusions when conditions were such that the scene was not recognized. Once recognized, however, these same pictures did yield such perceptions. It is suggested that a critical step in perceiving depth based on pictorial information is recognition of the scene.

Art

Body awareness in anorexia nervosa: disturbances in "body image" and "satiety".

Patients with anorexia nervosa have been shown previously to display distortions in body image perception. Bruch has postulated that these disturbances as well as disturbances in interoception are meaningfully related to the development of the syndrome. We hypothesized that disturbances in body image, as measured by a distorting photograph technique, and interoception, as measured by a satiety-aversion to sucrose test, should be demonstrable in anorexic patients vs. normal controls. Furthermore, these disturbances should be modifiable by external cues (looking at one's image in a mirror and ingesting isocaloric "high" and "low" calorie connotation meals). We also hypothesized that body image and interoceptive disturbances would be interrelated in the same individuals. Results indicated that patients with anorexia nervosa (N = 26) differed from normal controls (N = 16) in overestimating their body sizes (p = 0.06) and in failing to develop an aversion to the sucrose tastes (p less than 0.001). However, neither viewing one's image in a mirror nor ingesting both "high and "low" calorie connotation meals altered body size perception. Intrasubject body size estimates were very stable from week to week for the anorexic subjects (r = +0.75, p less than 0.001) but less for the controls (r = +0.45, p less than 0.05). The data revealed that overestimation of body size was closely related to the failure to develop an aversion to sucrose tastes in anorexic patients.

Adult

Effect of perspective and slant on perception of apparent size and distance.

An experiement was performed to re-examine the role of linear perspective and floor slant on apparent size and distance scales. Misleading perspective cues did not alter the observers' apparent distance scales but did influence the absolute magnitude of distance judgments; floor slant exerted little influence on apparent distance scales or the absolute magnitude of distance judgments. Neither perspective nor slant manipulation reliably affected apparent size scales or exerted more than a minor influence on the absolute magnitude of size judgments.

Cues