Portingale Jade, Butler David, Krug Isabel
School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3010, Australia.
Faculty of Psychology and Counselling, The Cairnmillar Institute, Melbourne 3123, Australia.
Nutrients. 2025 May 29;17(11):1861. doi: 10.3390/nu17111861.
: Individuals with eating disorders (EDs) experience stronger body illusions than control participants, suggesting that abnormalities in multisensory integration may underlie distorted body perception in these conditions. These illusions can also temporarily reduce body image disturbance. Given the centrality of the face to identity and social functioning-and emerging evidence of face image disturbance in EDs-this study examined, for the first time, whether individuals with EDs exhibit heightened susceptibility to a facial illusion (the enfacement illusion) and whether experiencing this illusion improves face and/or body image. : White Australian female participants (19 with an ED and 24 controls) completed synchronous and asynchronous facial mimicry tasks to induce the enfacement illusion. Susceptibility was assessed via self-report and an objective self-face recognition task, alongside pre- and post-task measures of perceived facial attractiveness, facial adiposity estimation, and head/body dissatisfaction. : The illusion was successfully induced across both groups. Contrary to predictions, ED and control participants demonstrated comparable susceptibility, and neither group experienced improvements in face or body image. Notably, participants with EDs experienced increased head dissatisfaction following the illusion. : These findings indicate that the multisensory integration processes underlying self-face perception, unlike those underlying body perception, may remain intact in EDs. Participant reflections suggested that the limited therapeutic benefit of the enfacement illusion for EDs may reflect the influence of maladaptive social-evaluative processing biases inadvertently triggered during the illusion. A novel dual-process model is proposed in which distorted self-face perception in EDs may arise from biased social-cognitive processing rather than sensory dysfunction alone.
饮食失调（EDs）患者比对照组参与者体验到更强的身体错觉，这表明多感官整合异常可能是这些情况下身体感知扭曲的基础。这些错觉也可以暂时减少身体形象障碍。鉴于面部在身份认同和社会功能中的核心地位，以及饮食失调中面部形象障碍的新证据，本研究首次探讨了饮食失调患者是否对面部错觉（面部嵌入错觉）表现出更高的易感性，以及体验这种错觉是否能改善面部和/或身体形象。：澳大利亚白人女性参与者（19名患有饮食失调症，24名对照组）完成同步和异步面部模仿任务以诱发面部嵌入错觉。通过自我报告和客观的自我面部识别任务评估易感性，同时进行任务前后对面部吸引力、面部脂肪估计和头部/身体不满的测量。：两组均成功诱发了错觉。与预测相反，饮食失调患者和对照组参与者表现出相当的易感性，两组在面部或身体形象方面均未得到改善。值得注意的是，饮食失调患者在经历错觉后对头部的不满增加。：这些发现表明，与身体感知的基础不同，自我面部感知的多感官整合过程在饮食失调中可能保持完整。参与者的反馈表明，面部嵌入错觉对饮食失调症的治疗益处有限，可能反映了错觉期间无意中触发的适应不良的社会评价加工偏差的影响。提出了一种新的双过程模型，其中饮食失调中扭曲的自我面部感知可能源于有偏差的社会认知加工，而不仅仅是感觉功能障碍。
