Effect of cognitive bias modification training on body image dissatisfaction in adolescents with anorexia nervosa or depression-a pilot feasibility randomized controlled crossover study.
Eva Glombitza, Piers L Cornelissen, Martin J Tovée, Tanja Legenbauer
{"title":"Effect of cognitive bias modification training on body image dissatisfaction in adolescents with anorexia nervosa or depression-a pilot feasibility randomized controlled crossover study.","authors":"Eva Glombitza, Piers L Cornelissen, Martin J Tovée, Tanja Legenbauer","doi":"10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1655064","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Body image disturbance presents transdiagnostically with an impact on the development and maintenance of psychiatric disorders. Addressing body image disturbance, a cognitive bias modification training (CBM) was developed using a two-alternative forced choice task (2-AFC) to alter patients' individual perceptual boundary between what they classify as a fat versus a thin body. This pilot study aimed to evaluate, for the first time, the paradigm's feasibility and efficacy in adolescents in a clinical context.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This pilot study included adolescent inpatients aged 13-17 years diagnosed with (atypical) anorexia nervosa (<i>n</i> = 12) or depression (<i>n</i> = 17), representing two prevalent disorders in adolescence. The 2-AFC task was tested in this population for the first time. Designed as a randomized crossover trial, patients underwent a 4-day intervention with corrective feedback and a 4-day control with confirmatory feedback. Psychometric measures assessing body image disturbance, depressive symptoms, and general psychopathology were collected at the beginning of the training and 10 days afterward (day 1, 15, 29).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Mixed ANOVAs showed that the 2-AFC CBM paradigm significantly shifted the categorical boundary over 10 days, altering patients' individual perceptual boundary but did not improve the body image specific psychometric measures. Linear regression indicated training effects on diagnosis-specific characteristics, and <i>t</i>-test comparisons revealed improved depression-specific symptoms for the depression group. The control condition had a non-neutral effect and shifted the individual boundary to a lower body mass index (BMI), particularly in patients with anorexia.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>These findings confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the 2-AFC CBM paradigm in adolescent inpatients transdiagnostically with further larger randomized controlled effectiveness trials required. The study suggests including normal-weight patients with anorexia nervosa only and not using confirmatory feedback as a control condition, but as an orientation and confirmation of a healthy weight limit.</p>","PeriodicalId":12525,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Psychology","volume":"16 ","pages":"1655064"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12510976/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1655064","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Introduction: Body image disturbance presents transdiagnostically with an impact on the development and maintenance of psychiatric disorders. Addressing body image disturbance, a cognitive bias modification training (CBM) was developed using a two-alternative forced choice task (2-AFC) to alter patients' individual perceptual boundary between what they classify as a fat versus a thin body. This pilot study aimed to evaluate, for the first time, the paradigm's feasibility and efficacy in adolescents in a clinical context.
Methods: This pilot study included adolescent inpatients aged 13-17 years diagnosed with (atypical) anorexia nervosa (n = 12) or depression (n = 17), representing two prevalent disorders in adolescence. The 2-AFC task was tested in this population for the first time. Designed as a randomized crossover trial, patients underwent a 4-day intervention with corrective feedback and a 4-day control with confirmatory feedback. Psychometric measures assessing body image disturbance, depressive symptoms, and general psychopathology were collected at the beginning of the training and 10 days afterward (day 1, 15, 29).
Results: Mixed ANOVAs showed that the 2-AFC CBM paradigm significantly shifted the categorical boundary over 10 days, altering patients' individual perceptual boundary but did not improve the body image specific psychometric measures. Linear regression indicated training effects on diagnosis-specific characteristics, and t-test comparisons revealed improved depression-specific symptoms for the depression group. The control condition had a non-neutral effect and shifted the individual boundary to a lower body mass index (BMI), particularly in patients with anorexia.
Discussion: These findings confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the 2-AFC CBM paradigm in adolescent inpatients transdiagnostically with further larger randomized controlled effectiveness trials required. The study suggests including normal-weight patients with anorexia nervosa only and not using confirmatory feedback as a control condition, but as an orientation and confirmation of a healthy weight limit.
期刊介绍:
Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.