Abstract

MONTAGNERO, Alexandre Vianna  and  ESTEVES, Marco Aurélio Silva. Selective attention and implicit memory in subjects with different BMIsp. Rev. bras.ter. cogn. [online]. 2013, vol.9, n.1, pp. 02-09. ISSN 1808-5687.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5935/1808-5687.20130002.

The increase in the number of cases of eating disorders is being widely studied. Obesity and compulsive eating are two such disorders which sometimes occur together. Understanding how cognitive biases of attention and memory influence lifestyle and eating behavior is of great value to the professionals who deal with this issue, because this knowledge can be used to develop even more prevention and intervention programs. This study focuses on the relationship between memory and attention bias in Body Mass Index. For this we use an experiment consisting of two tasks, one being about implicit memory and the other being a task about comparing type of response and time of reaction in face of neutral words and words related to food. We compare the performance of the experimental group consisting of participants with obesity, with the control group composed of participants with normal weight, according to the Body Mass Index (BMI). The results analyzed by ANOVA showed that the experimental group took significantly longer to identify words related to food compared to the control group. Additionally, the sample as a whole recalled more the words related to food in both tasks.

Keywords : food compulsion; implicit memory; selective attention.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )