E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Linda Carroll writes: Do you look in the mirror and see a short stubby person staring back at you?
Not to worry. It’s possible that your brain is playing tricks on you and you’re actually as tall and svelte as Gwyneth Paltrow.
OK, maybe that’s a stretch.
Still, British researchers have determined that most people are very bad at assessing their own dimensions. In the mind’s eye, we almost always see shorter and stubbier -- right down to the size and shape of our hands.
To determine how skewed people’s perceptions might be, Dr. Matthew Longo and colleagues from University College London rounded up a group of volunteers and asked them to put their left hand, palm down, under a board and then to indicate on the surface of the board the location of the covered hand’s knuckles and fingertips. With amazing consistency, people imagined a hand that was two-thirds wider and one-third shorter than their actual hand, according to Longo’s study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As it turns out, you don’t know the back of your hand as well as the saying may imply.
And while this knowledge might improve even Paltrow’s self-image, it could be much more helpful to people with eating disorders.
“These findings may well be relevant to psychiatric conditionsinvolving body image such as anorexia nervosa, as there may be a general bias towards perceiving the body to be wider than it is,” Longo says.
What’s surprising about the new research is that it comes from healthy people, says Mia Holland, chair person of the counseling studies department at Capella University.
Counselors will sometimes ask anorexic patients to draw a life-size picture of themselves, Holland says. Then the counselor will ask the person to lie down on the drawing while someone else inscribes a tracing of the person on the same paper. In those with severe anorexia, the difference can be stunning.
“A size 4 might draw herself as a size 14,” Holland says. “When the patient looks at the drawings it can be a real shocker.”
To read more Body Odd posts, click here. You can also follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bodyodd.
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.
Leave a Comment:
Why is it that when I "inspect" myself in the mirror throughout the day, I feel adequate to face the public, but I absolutely hate all photographs of myself?
I'm sort of the opposite - I think i'm taller than I actually am. I'm 5'2" but think I'm around 5'6". Then I try to reach that upper shelf.....and remember!
I have the same problem - I always tend to think I look better than I actually do! According to the pictures I see anyway. I've also read that when you look in the mirror you are seeing the reverse of what everyone else sees - you can never truly see what you look like in a mirror apparently.
Mirrors show you the opposite of yourself, while photographs show you as others see you. Try touching your left cheek in a mirror, you will look like you are touching your RIGHT cheek. Take a photo of you while touching your left cheek, the photo will actually show that. You look like your photos, NOT the way you appear in the mirror. That's why women hate their photos, they "don't look like themselves" because they are used to seeing the opposite of themselves in a mirror.
Actually, Tamy B, thats not true!
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5556184/description.html
A person can or cant be photogenic, the state of being photogenic may or may not necessarily be related to one's physical attractiveness in real life
it is important to understand the difference between looking at someone with two eyes and through a single camera lens. With two eyes, the human brain is able to see the three dimensional aspects of someone's face, even when viewed directly from the front, and it gives much more information than most cameras. With a camera, the subject is viewed through a single lens, and thus much of the three dimensional qualities of the face are lost, and the face may seem narrower, less full, or with different proportions, especially when viewed at a close proximity. An interesting effect can be seen if one compares a close up picture of someone's face to a picture taken from twenty feet away from the same angle (particularly while directly facing the camera). The face will appear different in each picture, and the farther shot will give a better representation of the person's true three dimensional appearance. The link above will give you more information about this effect, called imaginograph.
This is for those who, like me, look waay different in photographs