Body image and body schema in eating disorders: Fake hand illusion in patients with anorexia and bulimia nervosa
Poster Presentation

Massimiliano Zampini
Department of Cognitive Sciences and Education, University of Trento, Italy

Serena Nuccio
Department of Cognitive Sciences and Education, University of Trento, Italy

Gian Luigi Mansi
Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care ‘E. Medea', Bosisio Parini (LC), Italy

Alessandra Fumagalli
Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care ‘E. Medea', Bosisio Parini (LC), Italy

Massimo Molteni
Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care ‘E. Medea', Bosisio Parini (LC), Italy

Francesco Pavani
Department of Cognitive Sciences and Education, University of Trento, Italy

     Abstract ID Number: 56
     Full text: Not available
     Last modified: March 15, 2006

Abstract
Eating disorders, like anorexia or bulimia nervosa, have often been associated with distortions of the visual representation of the body (termed ‘body image’). Here, we used the fake-hand illusion to investigate whether the multisensory construction of the body schema might also be altered in these patients. In the fake-hand illusion, people mislocalize the felt position of their hidden real hand towards the location of a visible fake-hand, when the two hands are stroked in synchrony. In our study, 10 eating disorders patients and 10 healthy participants were presented with a real-time video-image of their hidden left hand stroked by the experimenter. Intermanual pointing measures and questionnaire ratings were used as dependent variables. We also examined whether fake-hand size could modulate the illusion, by zooming differently on the left hand to obtain reduced, veridical or enlarged video-images of the hand. While healthy participants experienced the fake-hand illusion for both veridical and enlarged video-images of their hand, eating disorders patients did not show any effect of the visible fake-hand on the intemanual pointing of the position of their hidden hand. These results demonstrate that eating disorders patients were not affected by the multisensory modulations of the body schema subtending the fake-hand illusion.