Virtual Reality Lab - Universitat de Barcelona

Attentional Bias toward the body is considerably important for people with body image disturbances, which provoke that they to focus in unattractive body parts. The aim of this study is to see if there are gender differences in their visual behavior with virtual reality (VR) and eye-tracker. Method: Eighty participants collaborated, thirty-six men and forty-four women. All of them were exposed in two avatars, one in a real body (real silhouette of the person) and the other in a 40% increased body. There were three conditions, first with the real body, second with an increased body and third with their real body again. Between one condition and the other, we did an eye-tracking to observe what parts of their body they were looking at. Results: The results obtained in SPSS with an ANOVA mixt inter-intra subjects, showed an interaction between weight and gender. Depending of the avatar that they were exposed to, it showed differences between men and women in the visual behavior. Conclusions: Men look at non-weight related body parts and women do look at weight related body parts.

Virtual Reality, gender differences, visual behavior, eye-tracker.