Theory of mind in eating disorders and their relationship to clinical profile

TAPAJÓZ PEREIRA DE SAMPAIO F, SONEIRA S, AULICINO A, AND ALLEGRI RF

Eur Eat Disord Rev

John Wiley and Sons

Año: 2013 vol. 21 p. 479 - 487

1072-4133

Theory of  ind was assessed in 65 women, consisting of 22 with anorexia nervosa (AN), 19 with bulimia nervosa (BN), and 24 healthy controls (HC), using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test and the Faux Pas Test. These tasks evaluate affective and cognitive ToM, respectively. We also examined the correlations between performance on ToM tasks and the clinical psychopathological Patients with AN had poorer performance than BN patients and HCs had in the affective ToM task, particularly in recognizing negative emotions and emotions in male eyes. Moreover, this decit showed no correlation with the psychopathological Performance in the BN group was equivalent to that of HCs in both tasks. In this study, patients with AN showed an impairment in affective ToM, independent of their clinical status. Consistent with other studies, our culty in social cognition in patients with AN. This may be a trait marker in this population and should be considered in treatment. Furthermore, patients with AN and BN have different difles in this domain of social cognition.