Use of eye tracking technology in eating disorders: Review Study

Eating disorders are among the topics of interest to many researchers and have been studied from several perspectives. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), these disorders include persistent eating disorders or eating-related behaviors and have different types such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, pica, and other disorders that can lead to significant physical, psychological and social damages. One of the tools that have received special attention in recent years is eye-tracking technology, which provides useful information to the researcher by tracking eye movements. This technology has been used to study the attention of people suffering from eating disorders to various stimuli. The purpose of this review is to summarize the data obtained from these studies. For this purpose, related keywords were searched in Science Direct and Pubmed databases. After removing articles that were not suitable for the purpose of the present study, 19 articles were reviewed. The results led to three general categories of food stimuli, body and facial emotions as the main stimuli in the field of eating disorders research using eye-tracking technology.