Integrated Research and Treatment Center AdiposityDiseases, Leipzig University Medical Center, Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Leipzig 04103, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg 1700, Switzerland.
Nutrients. 2017 Aug 19;9(8):903. doi: 10.3390/nu9080903.
Studies indicate an attentional bias towards food in binge-eating disorder (BED); however, more evidence on attentional engagement and disengagement and processing of multiple attention-competing stimuli is needed. This study aimed to examine visual attention to food and non-food stimuli in BED. In = 23 participants with full-syndrome and subsyndromal BED and = 23 individually matched healthy controls, eye-tracking was used to assess attention to food and non-food stimuli during a free exploration paradigm and a visual search task. In the free exploration paradigm, groups did not differ in their initial fixation position. While both groups fixated non-food stimuli significantly longer than food stimuli, the BED group allocated significantly more attention towards food than controls. In the visual search task, groups did not differ in detection times. However, a significant detection bias for food was found in full-syndrome BED, but not in controls. An increased initial attention towards food was related to greater BED symptomatology and lower body mass index (BMI) only in full-syndrome BED, while a greater maintained attention to food was associated with lower BMI in controls. The results suggest food-biased visual attentional processing in adults with BED. Further studies should clarify the implications of attentional processes for the etiology and maintenance of BED.
研究表明，暴食症（BED）患者存在对食物的注意力偏向；然而，我们需要更多关于注意力参与、脱离以及处理多种注意力竞争刺激的证据。本研究旨在探讨 BED 患者对食物和非食物刺激的视觉注意力。在 23 名有完全综合征和亚综合征 BED 的参与者和 23 名个体匹配的健康对照组中，使用眼动追踪来评估在自由探索范式和视觉搜索任务中对食物和非食物刺激的注意力。在自由探索范式中，两组在初始注视位置上没有差异。虽然两组对非食物刺激的注视时间明显长于食物刺激，但 BED 组对食物的注意力明显多于对照组。在视觉搜索任务中，两组的检测时间没有差异。然而，在完全综合征 BED 中发现了对食物的显著检测偏差，但在对照组中没有。对食物的初始注意力增加与 BED 症状严重程度和体重指数（BMI）降低有关，仅在完全综合征 BED 中，而对食物的持续注意力增加与对照组的 BMI 降低有关。研究结果表明，BED 患者存在食物偏向的视觉注意力处理。进一步的研究应阐明注意力过程对 BED 的病因和维持的影响。
