Testing the validity of online psychophysical measurement of body image perception

PLoS One. 2024 Jun 10;19(6):e0302747. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302747. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

This body image study tests the viability of transferring a complex psychophysical paradigm from a controlled in-person laboratory task to an online environment. 172 female participants made online judgements about their own body size when viewing images of computer-generated female bodies presented in either in front-view or at 45-degrees in a method of adjustment (MOA) paradigm. The results of these judgements were then compared to the results of two laboratory-based studies (with 96 and 40 female participants respectively) to establish three key findings. Firstly, the results show that the accuracy of online and in-lab estimates of body size are comparable, secondly that the same patterns of visual biases in judgements are shown both in-lab and online, and thirdly online data shows the same view-orientation advantage in accuracy in body size judgements as the laboratory studies. Thus, this study suggests that that online sampling potentially represents a rapid and accurate way of collecting reliable complex behavioural and perceptual data from a more diverse range of participants than is normally sampled in laboratory-based studies. It also offers the potential for designing stratified sampling strategies to construct a truly representative sample of a target population.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Body Image* / psychology
  • Body Size
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Internet
  • Judgment / physiology
  • Psychophysics* / methods
  • Visual Perception / physiology
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.