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Despite widespread misperceptions of body size and shape, the specific visual features influencing such judgments remain unclear. This study assessed the contribution of internal body features (e.g., colour, shading) to the accuracy of female body size judgements and whether that contribution varies with body size. Using a bodyline task, 100 female participants evaluated images of female bodies, either depicted as real bodies including internal features (feature stimuli) or images of bodies as silhouettes only (silhouette stimuli). The results showed greater overall errors in body size estimation for silhouettes compared to full feature images. However, the direction of error differed for large and small bodies: small silhouettes were judged larger than their full-feature counterparts, while large silhouettes were judged smaller. These findings emphasize the importance of internal body features in shaping perceptions of female body size and highlight the complexity of judgement accuracy across different body sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that body size judgements are frequently biased, or inaccurate. Critically, judgement biases are further exaggerated for individuals with eating disorders, a finding that has been attributed to difficulties integrating body features into a perceptual whole. However, current understanding of which body features are integrated when judging body size is lacking. In this study, we examine whether individuals integrate three-dimensional (3D) cues to body volume when making body size judgements. Computer-generated body stimuli were presented in a 3D Virtual Reality environment. Participants (N = 412) were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: in one condition, the to-be-judged body was displayed binocularly (containing 3D cues to body volume); in the other, bodies were presented monocularly (two-dimensional [2D] cues only). Across 150 trials, participants were required to make a body size judgement of a target female body from a third-person point of view using an unmarked visual analogue scale (VAS). It was found that 3D cues significantly influenced body size judgements. Namely, thin 3D bodies were judged smaller, and overweight 3D bodies were judged larger, than their 2D counterpart. Furthermore, to reconcile these effects, we present evidence that the two perceptual biases, regression to the mean and serial dependence, were reduced by the additional 3D feature information. Our findings increase our understanding of how body size is perceptually encoded and creates testable predictions for clinical populations exhibiting integration difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]