The influence of mood and attitudes towards eating on cognitive and autobiographical memory flexibility in female university students

A natural language model to automate scoring of autobiographical memories

Biases in the retrieval of personal, autobiographical memories are a core feature of multiple mental health disorders, and are associated with poor clinical prognosis. However, current assessments of memory bias are either reliant on human scoring, restricting their administration in clinical settings, or when computerized, are only able to identify one memory type. Here, we developed a natural language model able to classify text-based memories as one of five different autobiographical memory types (specific, categoric, extended, semantic associate, omission), allowing easy assessment of a wider range of memory biases, including reduced memory specificity and impaired memory flexibility. Our model was trained on 17,632 text-based, human-scored memories obtained from individuals with and without experience of memory bias and mental health challenges, which was then tested on a dataset of 5880 memories. We used 20-fold cross-validation setup, and the model was fine-tuned over BERT. Relative to benchmarking and an existing support vector model, our model achieved high accuracy (95.7%) and precision (91.0%). We provide an open-source version of the model which is able to be used without further coding, by those with no coding experience, to facilitate the assessment of autobiographical memory bias in clinical settings, and aid implementation of memory-based interventions within treatment services.

Autobiographical memory specificity and restrained eating: examining the influence of priming with images of healthy and unhealthy foods

BACKGROUND

Dietary restraint has been linked to deficits in the ability to recall detailed memories of personally experienced events (referred to as autobiographical memory specificity). As priming with healthy foods increases the salience of restraint it would be expected to lead to greater deficits in memory specificity.

OBJECTIVE

To determine if priming word cues with images of healthy or unhealthy foods would influence the specificity of memory retrieval, and if deficits in memory specificity would be more evident in those reporting higher levels of dietary restraint, or currently dieting.

METHODS

Sixty female undergraduates self-reported if they were currently dieting and completed measures of mood, restraint, and disinhibition, and a modified version of the autobiographical memory task. Participants were presented with positive and negative words (unrelated to eating concerns) and asked to retrieve a specific memory in response to each cue. A food image was shown prior to each word cue; half of the participants were primed with images of healthy foods and half with images of unhealthy foods.

RESULTS

As expected, participants primed with healthy foods retrieved fewer specific memories than did those primed with unhealthy foods. However, neither restraint nor current dieting behaviour was associated with memory specificity.

CONCLUSIONS

Differences in memory specificity between the priming conditions cannot be explained in terms of increased salience of restraint. However, it is plausible that unhealthy images led to an increase in positive affect, which in turn improved memory specificity.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

Level I: Evidence obtained from: at least one properly designed experimental study.

Direct and indirect effects of alexithymia on disordered eating in a non-clinical female sample: Determining the role of negative affect

BACKGROUND

Alexithymia is an independent predictor of symptoms of eating disorders, but also influences disordered eating in clinical samples indirectly via negative affect (depression and anxiety). The aim of the current work was to establish if alexithymia predicts disordered eating in a non-clinical sample directly and indirectly (via negative affect).

METHODS

A sample of healthy females (n = 248) completed measures of depression, anxiety, alexithymia, and disordered eating (drive for thinness, bulimia, and body dissatisfaction). Bias-corrected bootstrapping was used to conduct parallel mediation analyses to determine if negative affect (depression and anxiety) mediated the influence of alexithymia on disordered eating.

RESULTS

The relationship between alexithymia (difficulty identifying feelings) and drive for thinness was mediated by depression but not anxiety. The link between difficulty identifying feelings and bulimia was mediated by anxiety but not depression. The correlation between alexithymia (difficulty describing feelings) and body dissatisfaction was mediated by both depression and anxiety. However, after controlling for negative affect, difficulty identifying feelings remained an independent predictor of drive for thinness, and difficulty describing feelings remained an independent predictor of body dissatisfaction.

CONCLUSION

Facets of alexithymia (DIF and DDF) directly predict disordered eating in healthy participants as well as indirectly via depression and anxiety. These findings suggest that targeted interventions to improve the ability of individuals to identify and describe their feelings could be beneficial in reducing disordered eating, particularly in those "at risk" of developing eating disorders.

Association of executive function problems and disordered eating behaviours in teens with type 1 diabetes

AIM

To explore cross-sectional associations between executive function problems and disordered eating behaviours in teens with type 1 diabetes.

METHODS

Executive function was assessed by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF), self-report and parent proxy-report versions. Scores ≥60 (on Global Executive Composite, Behavioral Regulation Index, Metacognition Index or clinical scales) indicated problems with executive function. Disordered eating behaviour was assessed by the Diabetes Eating Problem Survey Revised (DEPS-R) and categorized as follows: <10 low, 10-19 moderate and ≥20 high.

RESULTS

In the 169 teens (46% girls, median age 16.0 years [range 13.7-18.7], median diabetes duration 8.9 years [range 1.4-16.6]), 29% had moderate and 12% had high level of disordered eating behaviours. Executive function problems were present in 9% by self report and 26% by parent proxy-report. Among teens with moderate/high level of disordered eating behaviours, 19% had executive function problems by self report (vs. 2% of teens with low level of disordered eating behaviours, p < 0.001) and 33% had executive function problems by parent proxy-report (vs. 20% of teens with low level of disordered eating behaviours, p = 0.056). A greater level of disordered eating behaviours was associated with executive function problems by teen self report on the General Executive Composite (p < 0.001), Behavioral Regulation Index (p < 0.001), emotional control clinical scale (p < 0.001), shift clinical scale (p < 0.001) and by parent proxy-report on the task initiation clinical scale (p = 0.008).

CONCLUSIONS

Assessing executive function and screening for disordered eating behaviours in teens with type 1 diabetes could help identify a subset of teens at high risk for adverse outcomes and need for intervention.

Is the Brixton Spatial Anticipation Test sensitive to frontal dysfunction? Evidence from patients with frontal and posterior lesions

INTRODUCTION

The Brixton Spatial Anticipation Test is a widely used neuropsychological test, thought to assess executive functions and to be sensitive to frontal lobe lesions. Our aim was to investigate Brixton performance in patients with focal frontal or posterior lesions and healthy controls.

METHOD

We compared performance on the Brixton in a sample of 24 frontal patients, 18 posterior patients and 22 healthy controls. Both overall performance (total number of errors) and error types were analyzed.

RESULTS

We found no significant differences between frontal and posterior patients and healthy controls in overall Brixton performance. Moreover, our error analysis showed no difference between frontal patients, posterior patients and healthy controls. The only exception was that posterior patients had a greater tendency to guess and make more errors when following specific rules than healthy controls but this was no longer significant once fluid intelligence was controlled for. We also found no significant difference between the performance of patients with left lateral (n = 11), right lateral (n = 10) or superior medial (n = 18) frontal lesions and healthy controls.

CONCLUSIONS

The Brixton test is not sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction. It is likely that the test draws on a range of cognitive abilities not specific to frontal lobe lesions. Hence, caution should be taken when drawing conclusions about its neural substrates.

Verbal emotional expressiveness in women with eating disorders: recalling autobiographical memories

PURPOSE

This study aimed to study autobiographical memories in women with eating disorders regarding emotional verbal expression, according to age. Our hypotheses are threefold: due to the emotional avoidance that occurs in women with eating disorders, in the younger ages, it was hypothesized that younger participants with anorexia and bulimia nervosa will present a lower number of emotional expressions in the descriptions of their memories than women without eating disorders; that older participants with anorexia and bulimia nervosa will present a greater number of negative verbal expressions in the reports of their memories than women without eating disorders, given the development of negative bias that occurs with age in women with eating disorders; and that women with eating disorders will use more words in a description of their sad memories than women without eating disorders because of the existence of negative bias.

METHODS

With a sample of 90 women and combining age and the presence or absence of eating disorders, we formed four groups. The task that they had to perform was to recall a sad and a happy life event.

RESULTS

The younger women used more words than the older women to describe their memories, and women with eating disorders used more words in their descriptions of the sad memories. However, there were no differences in terms of the number of positive and negative expressions.

CONCLUSIONS

Women with eating disorders exhibit higher levels of cognitive reappraisal and thus use more positive expressions and fewer negative expressions.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

Level V, Descriptive study.