Preliminary Evidence of Biased Attentional Mechanisms and Reward Processing in Adults with Obsessive-compulsive Disorder
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Keywords
obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention, reward
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1521/bumc.2019.83.2.128
Abstract
Individuals with obsessive-compulsive-disorder (OCD) may have difficulties in using feedback from rewarding and punishing experiences to optimally guide future decisions. The current aim was to examine how adults with OCD use associative learning feedback to direct attention toward learned stimuli when the action-outcome contingency for those stimuli has changed. Participants first learned to select high-probability (over low-probability) rewarding stimuli and low-probability (over high-probability) loss stimuli. Participants then saw these stimuli as the second of two targets in a task where available attentional resources were limited. Recognition of learned stimuli during limited attention was driven by previously learned stimulus-response associations instead of an attentional benefit toward the most favorable action-outcome associations (reward-associated stimuli), as demonstrated in prior research with non-OCD adults. The current evidence supports the hypothesis that individuals with OCD have difficulties shifting from learned stimulus-response associations when the response-outcome contingencies change.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, v. 83, issue 2, p. 128-151
Scholar Commons Citation
O'Brien, Jennifer L.; Jacob, Marni L.; and King, Morgan, "Preliminary Evidence of Biased Attentional Mechanisms and Reward Processing in Adults with Obsessive-compulsive Disorder" (2019). Pediatrics Faculty Publications. 36.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/ped_facpub/36
