Author:

Keywords:

mood-congruent memory, eating disorders, stroop test, quantitative measure, emotional disorders, schematic content, bulimia-nervosa, cognitive bias, anxiety, information, Social Sciences, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Psychology, Clinical, Psychiatry, Psychology, Multidisciplinary, Psychology, MOOD-CONGRUENT MEMORY, EATING DISORDERS, STROOP TEST, QUANTITATIVE MEASURE, EMOTIONAL DISORDERS, SCHEMATIC CONTENT, BULIMIA-NERVOSA, COGNITIVE BIAS, ANXIETY, INFORMATION, Adolescent, Adult, Anorexia Nervosa, Body Image, Body Weight, Diet, Reducing, Female, Humans, Mental Recall, Paired-Associate Learning, Patient Admission, Verbal Learning, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Clinical Psychology, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5203 Clinical and health psychology, 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology

Abstract:

Twelve patients with anorexia nervosa and 12 control participants watched a series of 64 words. There were 4 word types: anorexia related, positive, negative, and neutral. The last 3 types were anorexia unrelated. Anorexia-related words had the same affective valence as the neutral control words. Next, the participants completed an explicit memory test(cued recall) and an implicit memory test (word stem completion). Results showed a strong explicit memory bias for anorexia-related words for patients with anorexia nervosa but not for nondieting controls. There was no evidence for a similar bias in implicit memory. Results are discussed in the context of cognitive biases in psychopathology.