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Signal Attenuation as a Rat Model of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
09:29

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Published on: January 9, 2015

Ironic effects of compulsive perseveration.

Catharina L Giele1, Marcel A van den Hout, Iris M Engelhard

  • 1Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. C.L.Giele@uu.nl

Memory (Hove, England)
|September 29, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Perseverative behaviors in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) paradoxically increase uncertainty. This study suggests that repetitive actions cause semantic satiation, blocking the spread of meaning and enhancing uncertainty.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Psychiatry

Background:

  • Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often engage in repetitive behaviors to alleviate distress and uncertainty.
  • Paradoxically, these perseverative actions can exacerbate uncertainty, a phenomenon not fully explained by current models.
  • A potential mechanism involves the cognitive process of semantic satiation, where repeated exposure diminishes the accessibility of meaning.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the hypothesis that perseverative, obsessive-compulsive (OC)-like behaviors lead to semantic satiation.
  • To examine how semantic satiation interferes with the accessibility of meaning and contributes to increased uncertainty.
  • To elucidate the cognitive mechanisms underlying the paradoxical effects of perseverative behaviors in OCD.

Main Methods:

  • Healthy participants engaged in non-perseverative (2 repetitions) or perseverative (20 repetitions) OC-like checking behaviors.
  • Following the behavioral task, participants performed a semantic relatedness judgment task involving pictures and checked objects.
  • Reaction times were measured to assess the accessibility of meaning and the presence of spreading activation.

Main Results:

  • In the non-perseverative condition, faster judgments for related compared to unrelated object-picture pairs indicated spreading of activation.
  • This spreading of activation effect was significantly blocked in the perseverative condition, with similar reaction times for related and unrelated items.
  • Perseverative OC-like behavior impaired semantic processing and the accessibility of meaning.

Conclusions:

  • The findings suggest that perseverative behaviors characteristic of OCD can induce semantic satiation.
  • This semantic satiation interferes with cognitive processes like spreading of activation, potentially explaining the paradoxical increase in uncertainty.
  • Interventions targeting semantic processing may offer novel therapeutic avenues for obsessive-compulsive disorder.