Change Your Perception of Your Body Size in Two Minutes

Summary: A new study reports on how the perceptual mechanisms in a person’s brain adapt in response to images of one’s own or other people’s bodies that have been manipulated to look thinner or fatter than they really are.

Source: Macquarie University.

A new study from Macquarie University has found that people’s perception of their own and other people’s body weight can change in as little as two minutes.

The study looked at how the perceptual mechanisms in a person’s brain adapt in response to images of one’s own or other people’s bodies that have been manipulated to look thinner or fatter than they really are.

“After two minutes of being exposed to images of thinner versions of themselves or others, we saw that the neural mechanisms controlling participants’ perceptions actually adapted to see thin images as normal,” lead author Associate Professor Kevin Brooks explained.

“Original sized body images now looked fatter to them.”

The opposite was also true: exposure to fatter body types made participants see original body sizes as skinny.

The researchers also found that while there were different brain mechanisms controlling a person’s perception of their own body size and the body size of other people, the two mechanisms can also affect each other.

“This means that being exposed to images of skinny people doesn’t just make you feel bad about your own body size, which has been known for a while, it actually affects the perceptual mechanisms in your brain and makes you think you are bigger or smaller than you really are,” said Dr Ian Stephen, another author of the study.

“Duration and frequency of exposure definitely play a role, but the fact that the brain adapts after such a short exposure time suggests we are incredibly susceptible to being manipulated by images of different sized bodies.”

Image shows a man and woman.
The researchers say that the results add another piece of the puzzle to our current understanding of mental health problems involving body image disturbance, such as anorexia nervosa and muscle dysmorphia, and could potentially be used in the development of treatments for such conditions. NeuroscienceNews.com image is adapted from the Macquarie University press release.

The researchers say that the results add another piece of the puzzle to our current understanding of mental health problems involving body image disturbance, such as anorexia nervosa and muscle dysmorphia, and could potentially be used in the development of treatments for such conditions.

“There is only one way for information to be received by our brains: through the perceptual and neural mechanisms fed by our senses. By unpacking the details of the neural mechanisms involved in body size perception we are hoping to discover more about how the brain deals with this information as a whole, so that we can understand how conditions involving body image disturbance arise,” Associate Professor Brooks concluded.

About this neuroscience research article

Source: Maegan Wright – Macquarie University
Image Source: This NeuroscienceNews.com image is adapted from the Macquarie University press release.
Original Research: Abstract for “Body Image Distortion and Exposure to Extreme Body Types: Contingent Adaptation and Cross Adaptation for Self and Other” by Brooks, Kevin R; Mond, Jonathan M; Stevenson, Richard J; and Stephen, Ian D. in Frontiers in Neuroscience. Published online July 1 2016 doi:10.3389/fnins.2016.00334

Cite This NeuroscienceNews.com Article

[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]Macquarie University. “New Clue to How Lithium Works in the Brain.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 8 July 2016.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/body-perception-psychology-4648/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]Macquarie University. (2016, July 8). New Clue to How Lithium Works in the Brain. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved July 8, 2016 from https://neurosciencenews.com/body-perception-psychology-4648/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]Macquarie University. “New Clue to How Lithium Works in the Brain.” https://neurosciencenews.com/body-perception-psychology-4648/ (accessed July 8, 2016).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]


Abstract

Structures of Neural Correlation and How They Favor Coding

Body size misperception is common amongst the general public and is a core component of eating disorders and related conditions. While perennial media exposure to the “thin ideal” has been blamed for this misperception, relatively little research has examined visual adaptation as a potential mechanism. We examined the extent to which the bodies of “self” and “other” are processed by common or separate mechanisms in young women. Using a contingent adaptation paradigm, experiment 1 gave participants prolonged exposure to images both of the self and of another female that had been distorted in opposite directions (e.g. expanded other/contracted self), and assessed the aftereffects using test images both of the self and other. The directions of the resulting perceptual biases were contingent on the test stimulus, establishing at least some separation between the mechanisms encoding these body types. Experiment 2 used a cross adaptation paradigm to further investigate the extent to which these mechanisms are independent. Participants were adapted either to expanded or to contracted images of their own body or that of another female. While adaptation effects were largest when adapting and testing with the same body type, confirming the separation of mechanisms reported in experiment 1, substantial misperceptions were also demonstrated for cross adaptation conditions, demonstrating a degree of overlap in the encoding of self and other. In addition, the evidence of misperception of one’s own body following exposure to “thin” and to “fat” others demonstrates the viability of visual adaptation as a model of body image disturbance both for those who underestimate and those who overestimate their own size.

“Body Image Distortion and Exposure to Extreme Body Types: Contingent Adaptation and Cross Adaptation for Self and Other” by Brooks, Kevin R; Mond, Jonathan M; Stevenson, Richard J; and Stephen, Ian D. in Frontiers in Neuroscience. Published online July 1 2016 doi:10.3389/fnins.2016.00334

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