RESEARCH ARTICLE Body Image in Anorexia Nervosa: Body Size Estimation Utilising a Biological Motion Task and Eyetracking Andrea Phillipou 1,2,3 * , Susan Lee Rossell 4,5,6 , Caroline Gurvich 5 , David Jonathan Castle 2,6,7 , Nikolaus Friedrich Troje 8 & Larry Allen Abel 1 1 Department of Optometry & Vision Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 2 Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 3 Department of Mental Health, The Austin Hospital, Melbourne, Australia 4 Brain and Psychological Sciences Research Centre, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia 5 Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia 6 Department of Psychiatry, St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia 7 Faculty of Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia 8 Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada Abstract Objective: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a psychiatric condition characterised by a distortion of body image. However, whether individuals with AN can accurately perceive the size of other individuals’ bodies is unclear. Method: In the current study, 24 women with AN and 24 healthy control participants undertook two biological motion tasks while eyetracking was performed: to identify the gender and to indicate the walkers’ body size. Results: Anorexia nervosa participants tended to ‘hyperscan’ stimuli but did not demonstrate differences in how visual attention was di- rected to different body areas, relative to controls. Groups also did not differ in their estimation of body size. Discussion: The hyperscanning behaviours suggest increased anxiety to disorder-relevant stimuli in AN. The lack of group differ- ence in the estimation of body size suggests that the AN group was able to judge the body size of others accurately. The findings are discussed in terms of body image distortion specific to oneself in AN. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association. Received 2 June 2015; Revised 8 October 2015; Accepted 6 November 2015 Keywords eating disorder; eye movements; scanpaths; visual attention *Correspondence Dr Andrea Phillipou, Department of Mental Health, St Vincent’s Hospital, Fitzroy, VIC 3065, Australia. Tel: 0061 3 9231 4577. Fax: 0061 3 9231 4802. Email: ap@unimelb.edu.au Published online 1 December 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/erv.2423 Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a psychiatric illness characterised by sig- nificantly low body weight and a fear of weight gain. A core fea- ture of AN is a disturbance in the way in which an individual experiences their own body shape or weight, and this distortion of body image is indeed a diagnostic criterion for the disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). However, whether in- dividuals with AN have a perceptual disturbance that alters the ex- perience of their own bodies is unclear. One of the main methods utilised to assess perceptual body image disturbances in AN is the use of body size estimation tasks. In relation to estimating the size of their own body, some investigators have reported that individuals with AN do not differ from healthy controls (HCs; Fernández, Probst, Meerman, & Vandereycken, 1994; Fernández-Aranda, Dahme, & Meermann, 1999; Probst, Vandereycken, Van Coppenolle, & Pieters, 1995, 1998), while other research suggests that people with AN significantly overestimate their own body size (Collins et al., 1987; Slade & Russell, 1973; Smeets & Kosslyn, 2001; Tovée, Emery, & Cohen–Tovée, 2000). The estimation of other people’s body size has been far less fre- quently investigated in AN as the disturbance in body perception has generally been held to be related solely to one’s own body. However, in a study by Smeets (1999), where participants were re- quired to select when a morphing video of a woman transitioned from thin–normal to fat–obese, AN participants perceived earlier transitions than HCs. In other words, what AN participants con- sidered a thin, normal, overweight or obese body was thinner than Contract/grant sponsor: Jack Brockhoff Foundation Contract/grant number: 3410. Contract/grant sponsor: Dick and Pip Smith Foundation. Contract/grant sponsor: Australian Postgraduate Award. Contract/grant sponsor: David Hay Memorial Fund Award. 131 Eur. Eat. Disorders Rev. 24 (2016) 131–138 © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.