Body image, visual working memory and visual mental imagery

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1 Division of Psychology and Sociology, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
2 School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
3 School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.724v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Psychiatry and Psychology
Keywords
Body dissatisfaction, Body image, Visual imagery, visual memory, working memory
Copyright
© 2014 Darling et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Darling S, Uytman C, Allen RJ, Havelka J, Pearson DG. 2014. Body image, visual working memory and visual mental imagery. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e724v1

Abstract

Body dissatisfaction (BD) is a highly prevalent feature amongst females in society, with the majority of individuals regarding themselves to be overweight compared to their personal ideal, and very few self-describing as underweight. To date, explanations of this dramatic pattern have centred on extrinsic social and media factors, or intrinsic factors connected to individuals’ knowledge and belief structures regarding eating and body shape, with little research examining links between BD and basic cognitive mechanisms. This paper reports a correlational study in which visual and executive cognitive processes that could potentially impact on BD were assessed. Visual memory span and self-rated visual imagery were found to be predictive of BD, alongside a measure of inhibition derived from the Stroop task. In contrast, spatial memory and global precedence were not related to BD. Results are interpreted with reference to the influential multi-component model of working memory.

Author Comment

This article is a submission to PeerJ for review.