Attention biases in preoccupation with body image: an ERP study of the role of social comparison and automaticity when processing body size.

•Attention biases to body size were studied in women with high and low preoccupation.•Early and late ERP components were used as neural correlates of attention biases.•Social comparison processes were manipulated with personalized self- and peer-images.•Preoccupied women exhibited an earlier bias to enlarged bodies of both self and peer.•They allocated sustained attention only to changes in self, mainly size enlargements.