Nuding Laura, Lukas Linda, Platt Belinda, Schulte-Körne Gerd, Sfärlea Anca
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.
Eur Eat Disord Rev. 2024 Jan;32(1):13-19. doi: 10.1002/erv.3016. Epub 2023 Jul 31.
Anorexia nervosa (AN) is often associated with impairments in the socio-emotional domain. Avoidance of eye-contact may underlie some of these difficulties and has been found in adults with AN in several studies. This study aimed to clarify whether adolescents with AN also show reduced eye-contact when viewing social stimuli, that is, faces.
In this cross-sectional study, girls aged 12-18 years with AN (n = 38) were compared with a clinical (girls with depression and/or anxiety disorders; n = 30) and a healthy (n = 36) control group. Eye-contact was operationalised as maintenance of visual attention to the eye-area of faces showing different emotional expressions (happy, angry, afraid, sad, neutral), recorded via eye-tracking.
Contrary to our expectations, we did not find adolescents with AN to dwell less on the eye-area than control groups; instead, we found preliminary evidence for increased attention to the eye-area in the AN group compared to the healthy control group.
The results suggest that reduced eye-contact found in adult AN samples is not (yet) present in adolescents with AN but may develop with the prolonged duration of the disorder. However, replication and longitudinal studies are needed to confirm this assumption.
神经性厌食症（AN）常与社会情感领域的损害相关。避免眼神接触可能是其中一些困难的根源，并且在多项针对成年AN患者的研究中已被发现。本研究旨在阐明患有AN的青少年在观看社交刺激物（即面部）时是否也表现出较少的眼神接触。
在这项横断面研究中，将38名年龄在12至18岁之间的患有AN的女孩与一个临床对照组（患有抑郁症和/或焦虑症的女孩；n = 30）和一个健康对照组（n = 36）进行比较。通过眼动追踪记录，将眼神接触定义为对呈现不同情绪表情（高兴、愤怒、恐惧、悲伤、中性）的面部眼部区域保持视觉注意力。
与我们的预期相反，我们没有发现患有AN的青少年比对照组更少关注眼部区域；相反，我们发现了初步证据，表明与健康对照组相比，AN组对眼部区域的关注度有所增加。
结果表明，在成年AN样本中发现的较少眼神接触在患有AN的青少年中尚未出现，但可能会随着疾病持续时间的延长而出现。然而，需要重复研究和纵向研究来证实这一假设。
