The disorder-salient Stroop effect as a measure of psychopathology in eating disorders

✍ Scribed by Jones-Chesters, Matthew H. ;Monsell, Stephen ;Cooper, Peter J.

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 433 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0276-3478
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1098-108x(199807)24:1<65::aid-eat6>3.0.co;2-z

✦ Synopsis

Objectives:

The aim was to assess, using sophisticated experimental methods, the amount of interference on a stroop task in patients with eating disorders, under conditions of blocked and mixed stimulus presentation.

Methods:

Patients with eating disorders and non-patients named the color in which a word was displayed. words came from an experimental category (food/eating, weight/shape, "emotion," or affectively neutral word) or from a matched set of unrelated control words. color-naming latencies were compared in a blocked condition, with words from just one set in each block, and in a mixed condition, with a mixture of word types in each block.

Results:

In the mixed condition, patients took longer to color-name food/eating and weight/shape words than control words. with blocked presentation this effect was magnified; and patients with bulimia nervosa also showed increased naming-latency for "emotion" words. non-patients showed neither effect and no group showed interference for the affectively neutral category. patients' interference effects correlated reliably with self-reported depression and anxiety.

Discussion:

Sources of interference and methodological and diagnostic implications are discussed.