The human brain may perceive the human body as shorter and fatter than it actually is. This perception may be the reason that people suffering from eating disorders do not see themselves as "starvation thin," according to a new study from University College London.
- Dr. Matthew Longo, of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, asked people to put their left hands under a cover, and then locate their knuckles and fingertips.
- Participants estimated that their hands were about 66 percent wider and 33 percent shorter than they actually were.
- Dr. Longo believes that such misperceptions might apply to other parts of the body.
"Our participants were very accurate in picking out a photo of their own hand from a set of photos with various distortions of hand shape," said Dr. Longo. "There is clearly a conscious visual image of the body, but that visual image seems not to be used for position sense."
"Position sense" is the ability to know where all parts of your body are in space even when your eyes are closed.
"These findings may be relevant to psychiatric conditions involving body image such as anorexia nervosa, as there may be a general bias toward perceiving the body to be wider than it is," said Dr. Longo.
Therapists who treat anorexia and other eating disorders often report how clients perceive themselves to be overweight even when they are at a point of dangerous starvation.
Dr. Longo's study, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Labels: self-esteem, self-image_issues
Posted By: Jane St. Clair
