Table 4.

Summary of reviews of attention bias in EDs (2010–2018)

Review	Method	No. of included studies (k)	Age	ED diagnoses included	Non-ED comparison group(s)	Method(s) of assessment	Stimuli	Quality score1	Key findings and effect sizes
Aspen (2013)	Systematic review and meta-analysis	4	Adults	AN, BN, BED, EDNOS	HC	DP	Body/eating, positive/negative	3/11	1/4 studies found AB away from positive body shape stimuli (d=−.83), and 2/4 found AB towards negative shape stimuli (d=.80). 2/3 studies found AB away from positive and towards negative eating stimuli. Results most robust in BN, with more heterogeneity found for AN.
Brooks et al. (2011)	Meta-analysis	17	Adults	AN, BN	HC	Stroop, DP, DT	Food words, high/low calorie food images	7/11	9/9 Stroop studies found AB towards food stimuli in AN (d=.38), 8/10 found AB towards food stimuli in BN (d=.43) 2/2 DP studies found AB away from high-calorie food images (d=.93) in AN and BN, and AB towards low-calorie stimuli (d=−.72). For distractor tasks, 1/2 studies found large distracting effect of high-calorie food images in AN and BN (d=1.86) and faster RTs to detect high and low calorie food images (d=−.27).
Giel et al. (2017)	Systematic review	4	Adults (k=3) and adolescents (k=1)	BED, OB/BED	OBC, NWC	RSVP, spatial cuing, free viewing	Food-specific and neutral	4/9	4/4 studies found early AB to food pictures in Adult BED compared to OBC and NWC. No early AB was observed for adolescent BED samples. Late attention bias to food pictures was observed in 1/1 studies in adolescent BED and 2/3 studies of adult BED.
Jáuregui-Lobera (2013)	Systematic review	8	Adults	AN, BN, BED	HC	Stroop, Flankers task	Words-“fat” and “thin” vs. neutral, Food-specific and neutral	4/9	One study found no difference in sustained attention between AN and HC groups. 7/8 studies found AB to “fat” and “thin” words in AN. One study showed increased attentional disengagement to food vs. non-food pictures during free viewing, with degree of Attentional disengagement related to BMI. One study found AB away from thin physique words in AN and BN; for large physique words, AN showed AB towards whereas BN show AB away.
Kittel et al. (2015)	Systematic review	4	Adults	BED	OBC and NWC	Stroop, free viewing	Food/ body-related and neutral	3/9	3 studies showed greater AB towards food vs. non-food stimuli in OB vs BED and NWC controls. 1 study found larger AB to food stimuli for OB individuals with BED, versus OB and NWC. 1 study found AB towards self-rated ugly body parts in both BED and OWC.
Reville et al (2016)	Systematic review	5	Adults	AN	HC	Free viewing (eye tracking)	Body, eating stimuli, faces-angry and neutral	5/9	3 studies found AB in AN 1 study found that oxytocin increased vigilance to angry faces in AN but decreased vigilance in HC. 1 study found no AB to threat-related stimuli in AN.
Stojek et al (2018)	Systematic review	50	Adults and adolescents	BED, BN (clinical and sub-clinical), AN-B/P	HC, sub-clinical/recovered BN	Stroop, DP, Visual cuing, Visual Search, free viewing	Weight/shape, food, threat words/images	3/9	11/15 Stroop studies showed greater AB to weight/shape in BN vs. HC, and greater AB for women with BN vs. recovered/sub-clinical binge eating. 7/8 studies showed greater AB to threat stimuli in women with binge eating or BN behaviors. 10/16 studies showed no difference in AB for food cues in BN vs. HC, though more consistent biases were found in binge-type EDs without compensatory behaviors. DP, visual search and cuing studies show consistent AB for food.
Van den Eynde et al. (2011)	Systematic review	16	Adults and adolescents	BN, BED	HC	Stroop	Neutral	5/9	7/12 studies found no Stroop interference effect in BN/BED compared to HC.

Note. ED=eating disorder; AN=anorexia nervosa; ANrec=Recovered anorexia nervosa; AN-R=AN-restricting subtype; AN-BP=AN binge-purge subtype; AN-P=AN purging subtype; BN=bulimia nervosa; BED=binge eating disorder; EDNOS=eating disorder not otherwise specified; HC=healthy control; OBC=obese control; OWC=overweight control; NWC=normal weight control; N.S.=not specified; AB=attention bias; ES=emotional Stroop; DP=dot-probe; DT=distracter tasks; RSVP= rapid serial visual presentation task.

¹Quality scores for systematic reviews are based on a total possible score of 9; scores for meta-analyses are based on a total possible score of 11.