Psychological distance affects real movements in virtual reality: distance to food in anorexia nervosa.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Patients with restrictive Anorexia Nervosa (AN-R) severely restrict their food intake, often showing significant food avoidance behavior, especially for diet-goal threatening and high-calorie foods. Still, stringent comparisons of avoidance behaviors in relation to calorie dense foods, low-calorie food and abstract (amodal) food cues are required to better understand the underlying mechanisms.

Methods

Approach-avoidance behavior was measured in individuals with AN-R (n = 21) and Healthy Controls (HC; n = 19) using a virtual reality stop-signal task. In a virtual environment, participants had to reach a digitally rendered hand toward low-calorie, high-calorie and amodal (packaged) food cues, as well as nonfood cues (shoes). If a stop-sign appeared, they had to inhi

SUBMITTER: van den Hoek Ostende MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12329868 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature