Department of Neurocognitive Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.
PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e43195. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043195. Epub 2012 Aug 15.
Visual perception is highly variable and can be influenced by the surrounding world. Previous research has revealed that body perception can be biased due to adaptation to thin or fat body shapes. The aim of the present study was to show that adaptation to certain body shapes and the resulting perceptual biases transfer across different identities of adaptation and test stimuli. We designed two similar adaptation experiments in which healthy female participants adapted to pictures of either thin or fat bodies and subsequently compared more or less distorted pictures of their own body to their actual body shape. In the first experiment (n = 16) the same identity was used as adaptation and test stimuli (i.e. pictures of the participant's own body) while in the second experiment (n = 16) we used pictures of unfamiliar thin or fat bodies as adaptation stimuli. We found comparable adaptation effects in both experiments: After adaptation to a thin body, participants rated a thinner than actual body picture to be the most realistic and vice versa. We therefore assume that adaptation to certain body shapes transfers across different identities. These results raise the questions of whether some type of natural adaptation occurs in everyday life. Natural and predominant exposure to certain bodily features like body shape--especially the thin ideal in Western societies--could bias perception for these features. In this regard, further research might shed light on aspects of body dissatisfaction and the development of body image disturbances in terms of eating disorders.
视觉感知具有高度的可变性，并可能受到周围世界的影响。先前的研究表明，身体感知会因适应瘦或胖体型而产生偏差。本研究旨在表明，对特定体型的适应以及由此产生的感知偏差会在不同的适应和测试刺激的身份之间转移。我们设计了两个类似的适应实验，健康的女性参与者适应了瘦或胖身体的图片，然后将自己身体的更多或更少扭曲的图片与实际身体形状进行比较。在第一个实验（n = 16）中，使用相同的身份作为适应和测试刺激（即参与者自己身体的图片），而在第二个实验（n = 16）中，我们使用不熟悉的瘦或胖身体的图片作为适应刺激。我们在两个实验中都发现了类似的适应效果：适应瘦身后，参与者认为比实际身体更瘦的图片是最真实的，反之亦然。因此，我们假设对某些体型的适应会在不同的身份之间转移。这些结果提出了一些问题，即日常生活中是否会发生某种类型的自然适应。自然和主要暴露于某些身体特征，如体型——尤其是在西方社会的瘦理想体型——可能会使这些特征的感知产生偏差。在这方面，进一步的研究可能会揭示出与饮食失调相关的身体不满和身体意象障碍发展方面的一些问题。
