An adaptation of the stroop test for measuring shape and food concerns in eating disorders: A quantitative measure of psychopathology?

✍ Scribed by David I. Ben-Tovim; M. Kay Walker; Douglas Fok; Evelyn Yap

• Publisher: BioMed Central
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 411 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 2050-2974
• DOI: 10.1002/1098-108x(198911)8:6<681::aid-eat2260080609>3.0.co;2-#

✦ Synopsis

This report describes an adaptation of the Stroop Effect for measuring psychopathology. The Stroop Effect has been adapted to provide a quantitative measure of concerns relating to food and shape in patients undergoing treatment for anorexia nervosa and bulimia. The measure takes advantage of the disrupting effect of psychopathology on color naming of food and shape words. In comparison to agematched controls, anorexic and bulimic patients had significantly retarded colornaming of food words. There was a trend, which only reached significance with the bulimic subjects, for the color-naming of shape words to be similarly retarded. The potential utility of this adaptation of the Stroop Effect is discussed.