Facial processing in body dysmorphic disorder

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Ulrike Buhlmann
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2007 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 45339206

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is characterized by a preoccupation with perceived defects in one’s own appearance. According to cognitive-behavioral models of BDD, BDD sufferers overfocus on single (often facial) aspects of their appearance while ignoring the entire appearance (or face; “the big picture”). They have self-defeating appearance beliefs and emotion recognition deficits, which lead to negative emotions and avoidance or rituals. While there is growing evidence supporting these models, research is still limited. The current results indicate that individuals with BDD, relative to healthy individuals, are more accurate in identifying subtle changes (particularly with respect to asymmetry and size) when being presented with a series of gradually morphed faces. This finding gives further rise to the question of building perceptual retraining into innovative cognitive-behavioral treatments for BDD. The current results also provide evidence that emotion recognition deficits can be normalized through a specific training, which is of potential relevance for the treatment of BDD. Further, individuals with BDD exhibit slower short-term and long-term extinction of de novo skin conductance conditioned responses to angry emotional expressions as conditioned stimuli. Whereas fear conditioning and extinction has been studied in anxiety disorders, to our knowledge, the current project is the first investigating these phenomena in BDD. Based on these promising results, the proposed project primarily aims at examining context modulation of memory of fear extinction in a 2-day conditioning paradigm (first aim). The second aim is to further investigate facial discrimination abilities including other people’s face as well as one’s own face. The third aim is to examine selective attention toward threatening faces. Individuals with social phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder will be included as clinical control groups.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants