The Effect Of Visual Manipulations On Body Size Judgments

Abstract

Body image has been studied sh1ce the early 201li t)entury and is relevant in tenns of how we manipulate objects (Brain, 1963) as well as being an important cultural construct (Fisher, 1968; Jourard & Secord; 1955). Hov.bJb tly schema is formed is debated in the literature (Craske, Kenny, & Keith1, 984i Ra.thachandran& Rogers-Ramachandran, iii 1996; Shontz & McNash, 1972), though sevetal illusion studies have been designed to investigate this issue (Botnivik & Cohen, 1998; Holmes, Snijders, & Spence, 2006). The present study uses visual manipulation to investigate the effect of visual information on perceived hand size. Participants were asked to look through a magnification lens, a reduction lens, or a control filter and make size judgments about their hands. Results showed that the visual manipulation was most effective when participants looked at their hands under a reducing lens. A second part of the study investigated whether field independence influenced how susceptible people were to the visual manipulations. The results also show that males had higher field independence scores on an embedded figures test. Also, females were more affected by reduced visual infonnation when making judgments about their hands. Field independence was related to judgments of hand length.

Date of Award	2009
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University
Supervisor	Morton A. Heller (Supervisor)