Effects of full-body mirror exposure on eating pathology, body image and emotional states: Comparison between positive and negative verbalization

Mirror exposure (ME) is an effective technique to improve body image. However, evidence on the underlying mechanisms and the optimal verbalization instruction during ME is lacking. Therefore, this experimental study analyzed mechanisms of ME and therapeutic outcomes by comparing positive (PV) and negative (NV) full-body verbalization. N = 73 healthy females were randomized to a PV or an NV condition. PV participants verbalized positively while NV participants verbalized negatively about their whole body. Each participant underwent three standardized ME sessions. Before and after each ME session, positive affect, negative affect and body satisfaction were assessed. Before the first and after the third ME, participants completed questionnaires on cognitive-affective and behavioral aspects of body image, eating pathology and self-esteem. Regarding within-ME changes, the results indicate that positive affect and body satisfaction decreased while negative affect increased in the NV group but not in the PV group. In contrast, regarding between-ME changes, decreased negative affect as well as positive affect and increased body satisfaction were observed in both groups. However, eating pathology remained stable, whereas body-checking behavior increased and the PV condition was followed by higher levels of self-esteem compared to the NV condition. These findings suggest that both PV and NV improve negative affect and body satisfaction between-ME, and thus seem to be effective ME instructions. Given that NV led to increased negative affect within-ME and did not influence self-esteem, PV might represent the favorable instruction during ME for body-satisfied women.

Electrodermal Response to Mirror Exposure in Relation to Subjective Emotional Responses, Emotional Competences and Affectivity in Adolescent Girls With Restrictive Anorexia and Healthy Controls

Objective: Body image disturbances and the attendant negative emotions are two of the major clinical symptoms of eating disorders. The objective of the present experimental study was to shed more light on the degree of association or dissociation between the physiological and emotional response to mirror exposure in patients with restrictive mental anorexia, and on the relationships between the physiological response and characteristics connected with emotional processing.Materials and Methods: Thirty adolescent girls with the restrictive type of anorexia and thirty matched healthy controls underwent bilateral measurement of skin conductance (SC) during rest, neutral stimulus exposure, and mirror exposure, and completed a set of measures focused on emotion regulation competencies, affectivity, and eating disorder pathology.Results: Compared to healthy controls, girls with restrictive anorexia rated mirror exposure as a subjectively more distressful experience. Differences in skin conductance response (SCR) were not significant; however, variance in SCR was substantially greater in the group of anorexia patients as compared to healthy controls. The overall skin conductance level (SCL) was lower in anorexia patients. Increase in SCR during mirror exposure, as opposed to exposure to neutral stimuli, was positively related to the tendency to experience negative emotions, interoceptive sensitivity, body dissatisfaction and suppression, but not to other symptoms of eating pathology or emotional awareness. A post hoc analysis suggested that physiological reactivity might be associated with interoceptive sensitivity to mirror exposure especially in anorectic patients.Conclusion: The study seems to demonstrate some degree of dissociation between psychophysiological reactivity and subjective response to body exposure in patients with restrictive anorexia. Factors affecting differences in psychophysiological responsiveness to body exposure in anorectic patients require further exploration.

Investigating self-recognition in bonobos: mirror exposure reduces looking time to self but not unfamiliar conspecifics

The question of whether animals have some sort of self-awareness is a topic of continued debate. A necessary precondition for self-awareness is the ability to visually discriminate the self from others, which has traditionally been investigated through mirror self-recognition experiments. Although great apes generally pass such experiments, interpretations of results have remained controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate how bonobos (Pan paniscus) respond to different types of images of themselves and others, both before and after prolonged mirror exposure. We first presented presumably mirror-naive subjects with representations of themselves in three different ways (mirror image, contingent and non-contingent video footage) as well as representations of others (video footage of known and unknown conspecifics). We found that subjects paid significantly less attention to contingent images of themselves (mirror image, video footage) than to non-contingent images of themselves and unfamiliar individuals, suggesting they perceived the non-contingent self-images as novel. We then provided subjects with three months of access to a large mirror centrally positioned in the enclosure. Following this manipulation, subjects showed significantly reduced interest in the non-contingent self-images, while interest in unknown individuals remained unchanged, suggesting that the mirror experience has led to a fuller understanding of their own self. We discuss implications of this preliminary investigation for the on-going debate on self-awareness in animals.