Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz
University of Granada
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Featured researches published by Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz.
Body Image | 2012
Silvia Moreno-Domínguez; Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; Mª Carmen Fernández-Santaella; Anita Jansen; Brunna Tuschen-Caffier
While effectiveness of mirror exposure to reduce body dissatisfaction has been demonstrated, the exposure was almost always combined with other interventions. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a pure mirror exposure intervention compared with a guided mirror exposure (participants are guided to describe their body shape in a non-evaluative manner) and an imagery exposure intervention (participants are guided to describe their body through mental representation). Thirty-one women with high body dissatisfaction received five sessions of treatment under one of the three conditions. All interventions reduced body dissatisfaction, but only the mirror exposures successfully reduced the frequency of negative thoughts and feelings of ugliness. Pure mirror exposure was more effective than guided exposure for reducing body discomfort within and between sessions. Pure mirror exposure, based on the traditional extinction paradigm, led to strong emotional activation followed by a fast decrease in emotional reactivity.
PLOS ONE | 2014
Laura Miccoli; R. Delgado; Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; Pedro Guerra; Eduardo García-Mármol; M. Carmen Fernández-Santaella
In the last decades, food pictures have been repeatedly employed to investigate the emotional impact of food on healthy participants as well as individuals who suffer from eating disorders and obesity. However, despite their widespread use, food pictures are typically selected according to each researchers personal criteria, which make it difficult to reliably select food images and to compare results across different studies and laboratories. Therefore, to study affective reactions to food, it becomes pivotal to identify the emotional impact of specific food images based on wider samples of individuals. In the present paper we introduce the Open Library of Affective Foods (OLAF), which is a set of original food pictures created to reliably select food pictures based on the emotions they prompt, as indicated by affective ratings of valence, arousal, and dominance and by an additional food craving scale. OLAF images were designed to allow simultaneous use with affective images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), which is a well-known instrument to investigate emotional reactions in the laboratory. The ultimate goal of the OLAF is to contribute to understanding how food is emotionally processed in healthy individuals and in patients who suffer from eating and weight-related disorders. The present normative data, which was based on a large sample of an adolescent population, indicate that when viewing affective non-food IAPS images, valence, arousal, and dominance ratings were in line with expected patterns based on previous emotion research. Moreover, when viewing food pictures, affective and food craving ratings were consistent with research on food cue processing. As a whole, the data supported the methodological and theoretical reliability of the OLAF ratings, therefore providing researchers with a standardized tool to reliably investigate the emotional and motivational significance of food. The OLAF database is publicly available at zenodo.org.
Appetite | 2012
Silvia Moreno-Domínguez; Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; María Martín; Cortney S. Warren
This study examined how deprivation of chocolate affects state-level chocolate cravings, mood, and chocolate consumption in high and low trait-level chocolate-cravers. After identifying high and low chocolate cravers (N=58), half of the participants were instructed not to eat any chocolate for 2weeks. This created four experimental groups: deprived high-cravers (n=14), deprived low-cravers (n=14), non-deprived high-cravers (n=15), and non-deprived low-cravers (n=15). Following 2-week deprivation, state-level food cravings, mood, and chocolate intake were measured in a laboratory setting and compared across groups. Analyses revealed that anxiety increased over time for high-cravers (both deprived and non-deprived); state-level chocolate- and food-craving increased over time for both deprived groups and non-deprived high-cravers; non-deprived high-cravers ate the most chocolate; and, high-cravers were more joyful and guilty than low-cravers after eating chocolate in the laboratory. Theoretically, these results suggest that chocolate consumption may be better explained by trait-level of chocolate craving than by deprivation and highlighted significant differences in mood, state-level cravings, and chocolate intake between cravers and non-cravers following deprivation.
European Eating Disorders Review | 2012
Silvia Moreno-Domínguez; Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; M. Carmen Fernández-Santaella; Blanca Ortega-Roldán; Antonio Cepeda-Benito
Researchers have found that dietary restraint increases food cravings and may contribute to loss of control over eating. Negative mood states often precede food cravings and binge eating. In the present study, we tested the influence of a prolonged food deprivation period over emotional states and food cravings. Twenty-one bulimia nervosa participants and 20 healthy women participants were asked to refrain from any eating for 20 hours and reported, at baseline, after 6 hours and at the end of the fasting period, their mood and craving states. Food consumption was also measured. Fasting increased food cravings in both groups but increased negative mood in healthy women only. Bulimia nervosa participants reported improved mood following food deprivation. Whereas Bulimia nervosa and healthy women participants ate moderate and similar amounts of food following the 20-hour fasting period, food cravings were significantly associated with the number of calories ingested. These findings are congruent with self-regulation theories that predict that prolonged fasting may reduce negative emotions in women with bulimia nervosa.
Biological Psychology | 2009
José Luís Mata; Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial; Graham Turpin; Jaime Vila
We examined the habituation and recovery of two protective reflexes, cardiac defense and eye-blink startle, simultaneously elicited by a white noise of 500ms as a function of the time interval between stimulus presentations. Participants were 90 volunteers (54 women) randomly distributed into 6 inter-trial interval (ITI) conditions. They all received three presentations of the stimulus with a time interval of 30min between the first and third noise. The timing of the second noise was manipulated in six steps, using a between-group design, in order to increase the ITI between Trials 1 and 2 and symmetrically decrease the ITI between Trials 2 and 3. Cardiac defense showed fast habituation at the shortest ITI (2.5min), but reduced habituation and increased recovery at the longest ITI (27.5min). In contrast, eye-blink startle showed sensitization irrespective of the ITI. This pattern of findings highlights dissociations between protective reflexes when simultaneously examined. The results are discussed in the context of the cascade model of defense reactions.
PLOS ONE | 2014
Blanca Ortega-Roldán; Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; Pandelis Perakakis; M. Carmen Fernández-Santaella; Jaime Vila
Background Body dissatisfaction is the most relevant body image disturbance in bulimia nervosa (BN). Research has shown that viewing ones own body evokes negative thoughts and emotions in individuals with BN. However, the psychophysiological mechanisms involved in this negative reaction have not yet been clearly established. Our aim was to examine the emotional and attentional processes that are activated when patients with BN view their own bodies. Method We examined the effects of viewing a video of ones own body on the physiological (eye-blink startle, cardiac defense, and skin conductance) and subjective (pleasure, arousal, and control ratings) responses elicited by a burst of 110 dB white noise of 500 ms duration. The participants were 30 women with BN and 30 healthy control women. The experimental task consisted of two consecutive and counterbalanced presentations of the auditory stimulus preceded, alternatively, by a video of the participants own body versus no such video. Results The results showed that, when viewing their own bodies, women with BN experienced (a) greater inhibition of the startle reflex, (b) greater cardiac acceleration in the first component of the defense reaction, (c) greater skin conductance response, and (d) less subjective pleasure and control combined with greater arousal, compared with the control participants. Conclusion Our findings suggest that, for women with BN, peripheral-physiological responses to self-images are dominated by attentional processes, which provoke an immobility reaction caused by a dysfunctional negative response to their own body.
Journal of Psychophysiology | 2009
Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial; Nieves Vera; Carmen Domínguez Fernández; Lourdes Anllo-Vento; Jaime Vila
The study examines the effect of heart rate variability (HRV) on the cardiac defence response (CDR) and eating disorder symptomatology in chocolate cravers. Female chocolate cravers (n = 36) and noncravers (n = 36) underwent a psychophysiological test to assess their HRV during a 5-min rest period, followed by three trials to explore the CDR, elicited by an intense white noise, during the viewing of chocolate, neutral, and unpleasant pictures. After the test, participants completed a questionnaire to measure eating disorder symptomatology. The HRV was inversely related to the magnitude of the CDR and to eating disorder symptomatology in chocolate cravers. In addition, the HRV was inversely related to the magnitude of the CDR when viewing unpleasant pictures but not to neutral or chocolate ones, across all participants. These findings support the idea that poor autonomic regulation, indexed by low HRV, plays a relevant role in food craving and uncontrolled eating behavior.
PLOS ONE | 2016
Laura Miccoli; R. Delgado; Pedro Guerra; Francesco Versace; Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; M. Carmen Fernández-Santaella
Recently, several sets of standardized food pictures have been created, supplying both food images and their subjective evaluations. However, to date only the OLAF (Open Library of Affective Foods), a set of food images and ratings we developed in adolescents, has the specific purpose of studying emotions toward food. Moreover, some researchers have argued that food evaluations are not valid across individuals and groups, unless feelings toward food cues are compared with feelings toward intense experiences unrelated to food, that serve as benchmarks. Therefore the OLAF presented here, comprising a set of original food images and a group of standardized highly emotional pictures, is intended to provide valid between-group judgments in adults. Emotional images (erotica, mutilations, and neutrals from the International Affective Picture System/IAPS) additionally ensure that the affective ratings are consistent with emotion research. The OLAF depicts high-calorie sweet and savory foods and low-calorie fruits and vegetables, portraying foods within natural scenes matching the IAPS features. An adult sample evaluated both food and affective pictures in terms of pleasure, arousal, dominance, and food craving, following standardized affective rating procedures. The affective ratings for the emotional pictures corroborated previous findings, thus confirming the reliability of evaluations for the food images. Among the OLAF images, high-calorie sweet and savory foods elicited the greatest pleasure, although they elicited, as expected, less arousal than erotica. The observed patterns were consistent with research on emotions and confirmed the reliability of OLAF evaluations. The OLAF and affective pictures constitute a sound methodology to investigate emotions toward food within a wider motivational framework. The OLAF is freely accessible at digibug.ugr.es.
European Eating Disorders Review | 2014
Blanca Ortega-Roldán; Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; Sandra Díaz-Ferrer; M. Carmen Fernández-Santaella; Jaime Vila
Emotional effects of upward body comparisons are suggested to occur automatically. A startle reflex paradigm was used to objectively examine the emotions elicited by viewing a picture of ones own body adopting a model pose or a neutral pose, in 30 women with high body dissatisfaction (HBD) and 33 women with low body dissatisfaction (LBD). In-task emotional responses in perceived valence, arousal and control were assessed. Additionally, post-task positive/negative and body-related beauty feelings were recorded. The results revealed that HBD women, compared with LBD women, showed (i) less pleasure, higher activation and less control whilst viewing their own bodies and (ii) less pleasure, more negative/ugliness feelings and an increased startle response when viewing themselves posing as models. The data showed that their own bodies provoked an immediate negative emotional state in HBD women. However, greater aversive psychophysiological mechanisms were automatically activated only when these women posed as models, suggesting that they made upward own-body comparisons.
Archive | 2011
Sonia Rodríguez-Ruiz; Silvia Moreno; M. Carmen Fernández; Antonio Cepeda-Benito; Jaime Vila
Dyscontrol is an essential trait in women with bulimia nervosa (BN). Indeed, impulsivity seems to underlie the neuropsychological and psychophysiological functioning of women suffering from BN. The present chapter looks at the lack of inhibitory control in BN through a wide range of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional processes. Throughout the chapter, empirical evidence shows that BN individuals appear to succumb to food cravings and binge eating in order to escape negative emotional states. Also, parallel to eating, sexual activity is known to become uncontrollable due to the affective comfort that it provides. Thus, women with BN may attempt to gain emotional relief and control through a long-term cycle of extreme dieting, bingeing, purging and even becoming sexually promiscuous. However, as the neuropsychological literature suggests, these destructive impulses reflect a significant motor impulsivity and an impairment of decision-making abilities that increase, rather than decrease, the feelings of dyscontrol. Consequently, chronic lack of inhibitory control of physiological and emotional processes that characterize unsuccessful dieters seems to maintain the poor autonomic regulation indexed by defensive reactions and heart rate variability. Finally, the present work emphasizes the need of integrating behavioral, neuropsychological, and psychophysiological intervention techniques to improve the treatment of the dyscontrol in women with BN.