Chapter 1: Introduction Body image refers to the collection of beliefs, feelings and perceptions that an individual has about their physical appearance, and is a significant predictor of one’s physical and mental health (Gillen, 2015). Body image concern (BIC) is so pervasive that it is often referred to as a ‘normative discontent’ among both women and men (Tantleff-Dunn, Barnes, & Larose, 2011). It exists along a continuum, with higher levels indicating an unhealthy, clinically significant preoccupation with perceived or minor physical flaws, which is characteristic of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed., DSM-5, American Psychological Association, 2013). The severity of discontent, …show more content…
It is thought that these apparent abnormalities produce an imbalance between global and local processing, such that individuals with this disorder are orientated toward the local features of an image or object at the expense of more global representations. In other words, it has been proposed that a local visual processing bias may be present in this disorder. Brain imaging studies have found that, compared with healthy controls, BDD patients display hyperactivity in the left hemisphere, particularly in the frontal, temporal and parietal regions (Feusner et al, 2007, 2011). The left hemisphere is an area known to be involved in the processing of details (Gazzaniga, 2000; Love, Rouder, & Wisniewski, 1999; Bradshaw et al. 1976), while the right hemisphere, which was employed more by healthy controls, is believed to be heavily involved in global, holistic processing (Evans et al. 2000). These results suggest that BDD patients rely more on detailed processing, which is reflected in their preferential use of the left hemisphere. Recent behavioural evidence is beginning to converge with the findings from these brain imaging studies. For example, BDD patients demonstrated a preference towards the minute details of a complex figure when asked to copy the figure from memory, as in the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (Deckerbach et al., 2000). In …show more content…
For healthy controls, rotating a stimulus 180 typically results in slower and less accurate responses compared to upright stimulus presentations (Reed, Stone, Bozova, & Tanaka, 2003). This effect is especially pronounced for faces and bodies, compared to other stimuli such as houses and landscapes (Diamond & Carey, 1986; Reed et al., 2003; Yin, 1969).For example, face inversion typically results in a 20 to 30 per cent decrease in recognition accuracy compared to upright faces. However, inverting other non-face stimuli usually only produces an accuracy detriment of 0 to 10 per cent (Carey,
The Direct-route pathway course inquiries, and the Inverse-route pathway course examinations utilize the use of a vocal policy or the modest recollection of the preceding practice are no longer successful. The Giusberti, et al, (2010) study has adopted a viewpoint that has never been practiced before, and they are required to represent the psychological atmosphere. It recommends that the frequency of images hemineglect disturbs the capability to steer when the subject has to use a mental diagram of the situation (Giusberti, et al, 2010). It is still being discussed whether the discrepancy detected in subjects is owed to struggles in constructing a psychological chart, recollecting it from recollection, or utilizing it throughout direction finding (Giusberti, et al, 2010). Appraising hemispheric engrossment in graphic psychological imaginings, and the findings showed that right and left intellectually impaired subjects with no sign of representative hemineglect completed faultlessly in the visualizations tasks (Giusberti, et al, 2010). Useful neuroimaging experiments recorded that both hemispheres are complicated in psychological imaginings treatment (Giusberti, et al,
The brain assymetry experiment is to investigate on the distinctiveness of the right and left hemisphere in the brain as each hemisphere has certain specializations. The experiment were carried out by initially asking the 25 participant on whether they were left or right handed and they had to choose the chimeric image which appeared younger to them. Laterality quotients were calculated in order to deduce the effect of the right or left hemisphere on visuo-spatiality as the participants had to make judgements on the faces. Right-handed individuals showed leftward perceptual bias compared to left-handed individuals, indicating that the right
Body image is a major concern amongst the majority, primarily the youth of the female population, ranging from as young as five years old to tertiary students, ’74.4% of the normal-weight women stated that they thought about their weight or appearance ‘all the time’ or ‘frequently’’ (Brown University, unknown).
In a generation filled with entertainment and technology, there are many advertisements that exist. Advertisements, such as clothing advertisements, involve lots of touch ups on the model, making what the world sees, a fake reality of what human body look like. For some of the North American population, these advertisements do not affect them; they will look at the body of the model and not think much of it. But for those who suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, this will affect them in a completely different way. Body Dysmorphic Disorder is “a body image disorder characterized by persistent and intrusive preoccupations with an imagined or slight defect in one’s appearance” (ADAA, 2014). The impact that advertisements can have on those suffering from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, can be crucial to their mental health. These individuals will begin to obsess over changing something about themselves that may not even be an imperfection about them. But since a model or someone else looks a certain way and they do not, they will do anything they can to change it, which can be very unhealthy. Those with Body Dysmorphic Disorder will perform different behaviours to attempt at hiding or improving their flaws (ADAA, 2014). Some of those who are suffering may even develop an eating disorder.
Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, is a form of visual agnosia characterized by an inability to recognize faces. Usually those with Prosopagnosia are able to see the features on a person 's appearance with little difficulty; however, it is the retention and synthetization of those images that challenges them. Many people also report deficits in other aspects of face processing, such as judging age or gender, recognizing certain emotional expressions, or following the direction of a person 's eye gaze. Currently, scientists have yet to come to a consensus on the actual cause of the disease, but many suspect it is linked to extensive damage of the occipital and temporal lobes. Presently, one speculation is that Prosopagnosia is connected to the fusiform gyrus, an area of the brain located on the inferior/median temporal lobe. As found by researchers, “the fusiform gyrus is thought to constitute a “core” visual representation system for faces, in part because they show face selectivity and face repetition suppression” (Furl, N., Garrido, L., Dolan, R. J., Driver, J., & Duchaine, B., 2011, 1723-1740). However, looking at recent fMRI studies, scientists are questioning whether these conditions and damages to the fusiform gyrus relate to face processing skills at all (Furl, N. et al, 2011). Due to this uncertainty another theory has evolved. As stated by Gainotti (2010, 763-766), “prosopagnosia is due to disruption of purely visual entities, the face
This raises the question about gender difference and the concept of body image and prevalence of
People now a days have a problem with the way they appear. For hundreds of years, people, especially females, have been concerned with their weight, the way they look, and the way people perceive them. In the article, Do You Have a Body Image Problem? author Dr. Katharine A. Phillips discusses the concerns with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Dr. Phillips uses her knowledge or ethics to discuss the effects that BDD has on people today. She also uses emotion to show the reader how people are seriously affected by this disorder. In Dr. Phillips article, she discusses how people are emotionally and socially affected by the body dysmorphic disorder, and how society is also affected by it.
A patient named D.F. suffered from this, and provided a great amount of support for Milner and Goodale’s theory. Although her low level visual functions such as target detection and colour discrimination were normal, her ability to recognize familiar faces and common objects was impaired. Yet when shown real objects rather than drawings, D.F. could recognize them. However, upon further examination of this ability it was found that D.F. was using surface properties such as colour, rather than the outline of the shape to identify the object (Humphrey et al 1994). What confirmed Milner and Goodale’s theory was that D.F. could grasp objects that she could not entirely perceive. Initial experiments by Milner et al (1991) highlighted this. In these D.F. was given a disc and had to perform either a perceptual orientation matching task or a visuomotor task. It was found that although she could not explain the orientation of the slot, her performance on the visuomotor task where she had to post the disc into the slot was typical. Milner and Goodale (1995) argued this was because D.F’s ventral stream was severely impaired, and the visuomotor skills she still had were due to an intact dorsal stream. This dissociation found between perception and action only increased the idea that the ventral and dorsal stream are independently working
Body dysmorphic disorder is a distinct mental illness, which causes an individual to become obsessive on focusing on their flaws in appearance, and to others the flaw may be minor or not visible. It is also known as dysmorphophobia. Patients affected by BDD have deeply negative thoughts about their appearance. In the limbic system, hyperactivity causes individuals to feel as if they are constantly being critiqued and negatively judged by others. Individuals diagnosed with the illness often look into surgery for their physical appearance to enhance. There are more than 200,000 cases a year involving body dysmorphic disorder, and about 1 in 50 people are affected (Phillips, 2004). Constantly comparing their image to others, frequent looks in
Kerwin, Hovav, Hellemann & Feusner (2014) have shown that BDD individuals have slower and less accurate global and local processing than controls and they have problems in performance with shifting attention between the different level of stimuli on the NAVON task (incongruent stimuli comprised of a large letter made up of smaller letters) and embedded figure task (determining which of three complex figures contains a simpler figure embedded within it). The findings show that controls may engage in bottom-up parallel processing of both global and local features and BDD patients would act according to top-down attentional shifts that operate slowly if impaired in global processing, in that, BDD patients use detail to detail scanning as perceptual strategy whereas the controls may have been operated based on fast global frame that allows details to be located more easily within it. These results contribute to a nascent body of research that provides explanation for preoccupation with details in appearance in that slower perceptual processing of local stimuli could lead to explicit attention to minor defects that could worsen and maintain BDD symptoms such as ruminations and preoccupation with imagined or slight flaws (Kerwin, Hovav, Hellemann & Feusner,2014).
Chronic dieting, low self-esteem, depression and, high levels of body dissatisfaction were among the major issues women face when addressing their body image (Gingras, Fitzpatrick, & McCargar, 2004). The severity of body image dissatisfaction have increased to such a dangerous state that it was added to the DSM-IV as a disorder now called body dysmorphic disorder (Suissa, 2008). One of the main reasons for the prevalence of these conditions in women was due to contemporary Western media, which serve as one of the major agent in enforcing an ultra-thin figure as the ideal for female beauty (Saraceni & Russell-Mayhew, 2007). These images and models presented by the media have become the epitome of beauty, pushing women who internalized these images to dangerous extent to attain these norms. According to evidence from previous studies, contemporary Western cultures have influenced women to an acquired normative state of discontent with their bodies, which have become the source of maladaptive eating practices, negative psychological outcomes, and, chronic health conditions associated with eating disorders (Snapp, Hensley-Choate, & Ryu, 2012). The seriousness of these body image conditions among youths and women have also led to congressional actions.
The raw data were analyzed as the mean BOLD activations and their standard deviations (Figure 5). Data were analyzed in 2 (Age) X 4 (Stimuli), within-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA). Data regarding the face and scrambled face conditions were analyzed using a 2 (age) X 2 (Face Stimuli and Scrambled Face Stimuli), within-subjects ANOVA. Data regarding only the multi-part and chain objects stimuli were then analyzed using a 2 (Age) X 2 (Multi-Part Object, Chain Object), within subjects ANOVA. Lastly, the relationship between the BOLD response to familiar objects in 4-month-olds and the BOLD response to faces at 4-month-olds were analyzed using a t-test.
Often, people of all ages, race, and gender catch themselves gazing into mirrors for hours, blaming themselves for the way they look, not realizing that the media is actually the one to blame for many people’s body image. Body image is the way people see themselves, or how they assume other people see them. It is not likely to see a plus sized model in a magazine or a model on the runway with blemishes on her face. A person’s negative perception of their own body is not because they think it is wrong to look and be healthy; it is because the media is telling them that being a size 2 with flawless skin is healthy and beautiful.
At this point, it is already acknowledged that body dissatisfaction is one of the major psychological effects caused in women by the unachievable cultural standards of beauty. A massive total of women feel constantly insecure, inadequate and overweight. Body obsessive comparison origins from the permanent
Developmental Prosopagnosia is when an individual can’t acquire the certain processes for facial recognition. More recent neurocognitive models of face processing also distinguish between face recognition processes involved in the visual analysis of faces, and those involved in facial familiarity (Dalyrmple, Garrido & Duchaine, 2014). In understanding Prosopagnosia, one must first understand the