Abstract

This study aimed to establish whether a person with a high level of physical dissatisfaction showed explicit and implicit memory bias against body-related negative words. To this end, the high body dissatisfaction group and the low body dissatisfaction group were divided to measure the explicit and implicit memories of body-related words. For encoding, 20 positive words related to the body, 20 negative words, and 40 neutral words were used, and the presented word stimulus was instructed to press the '1' button if it was 2 syllables and the '0' button if it was 3 syllables. After that, interference tasks were carried out to prevent recitation. To take the next explicit memory test, a free recall task was performed, and body-related words were written randomly. To measure the implicit memory, the repetition priming task was performed, and the presented word was viewed and requested to classify the word and non-words as quickly and accurately as possible. The reaction time depending on the word type was measured to confirm the amount of priming according to the word type. As a result of the study, after controlling depression, the high body dissatisfaction group showed a large amount of priming to body-related negative words in implicit memory tasks, and there was no difference between the two groups in explicit memory tasks. This means that the high body dissatisfaction group is memory-biased to body-related negative words. In addition, it was found that the high body dissatisfaction group did not consciously remember the body-related negative words automatically and implicitly. The results of this study examined memory bias for body-related negative words according to the level of body dissatisfaction and memory type. The results suggest that in the future therapeutic intervention should be available in implicit memory bias as well as explicit memory bias in body-related negative words in groups with high body dissatisfaction.