Meregalli Valentina, Tenconi Elena, Cardi Valentina, Bonifanti Antonio, Meneguzzo Paolo, Favaro Angela, Collantoni Enrico
Department of Neuroscience, University of Padua, Padova, Italy.
Padua Neuroscience Center, University of Padua, Padova, Italy.
Eur Eat Disord Rev. 2023 Nov;31(6):813-821. doi: 10.1002/erv.3011. Epub 2023 Jul 5.
A biased attentional processing of food stimuli may represent a disorder maintenance factor in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN). The present study aimed at investigating the temporal course of attentional deployment towards both high-calorie and low-calorie foods in patients with AN using eye-tracking.
Fifty-two patients with restrictive AN and 54 healthy controls (HC) performed a dot-probe task while their gaze was recorded with an eye-tracking system. The direction bias (percentage of trials in which the gaze was directed towards the food at first fixation, 500, and 1500 ms), and the duration bias (percentage of time spent looking at the food) were extracted.
Regarding the direction bias, a group by time interaction emerged (F = 3.29, p = 0.038): while in the control group the bias continued to increase over the course of the trial, patients with AN showed a reduction of the bias between the 500 and 1500 ms. No group differences were observed on the duration bias.
In advanced stages of attentional deployment patients with AN start to differ from HC by diverting their attention away from food stimuli, a strategic process that may contribute to food avoidance and calorie restriction.
对食物刺激的偏向性注意力加工可能是神经性厌食症（AN）患者病情维持的一个因素。本研究旨在使用眼动追踪技术，调查AN患者对高热量和低热量食物注意力分配的时间进程。
52名限制型AN患者和54名健康对照者（HC）进行了点探测任务，同时用眼动追踪系统记录他们的注视情况。提取方向偏向（首次注视、500毫秒和1500毫秒时注视食物的试验百分比）和持续时间偏向（注视食物所花费的时间百分比）。
关于方向偏向，出现了组间与时间的交互作用（F = 3.29，p = 0.038）：在对照组中，偏向在试验过程中持续增加，而AN患者在500毫秒至1500毫秒之间偏向减少。在持续时间偏向上未观察到组间差异。
在注意力分配的后期阶段，AN患者开始与HC不同，他们将注意力从食物刺激上转移开，这一策略性过程可能有助于避免进食和限制热量摄入。
