Women's self-estimates of body size are more accurate and precise when made with three-quarter view than front-view stimuli

摘要

Recently, Cornelissen, Cornelissen, Groves, McCarty and Tovee (2018) asked which image orientations (e.g. front-, side-, or three-quarter view) are most appropriate for tasks which are used for self-estimates of body size and shape. Based on psychophysical measurements, they showed that front view stimuli showed substantially poorer content validity compared to side-and three-quarter view stimuli. Here, we tested the real-world consequences of Cornelissen et al.'s (2018) findings. We carried out a body size self-estimation task in a sample of healthy adult women, once with front view stimuli, and once with three-quarter view stimuli. The order in which front-and three-quarter view tasks were carried out was randomized across participants. Compared to three-quarter view stimuli, we found that: a) the precision of participants' judgements was worse with front view stimuli, and b) that front view stimuli led to overestimation of body size by similar to 1.7 BMI units. While these results need to be replicated, they do suggest that careful consideration needs to be given to stimulus orientation in future studies. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.