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Individuals with higher obsessive-compulsive scores exhibit indecisiveness, gathering more information due to higher decision thresholds and delayed urgency signals. This behavior extends across a compulsivity spectrum.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive neuroscience
  • Psychiatry

Background:

  • Indecisiveness and doubt are key features of compulsive disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
  • Cognitive mechanisms underlying these behaviors across a compulsivity spectrum remain poorly understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate indecisiveness using a sequential information gathering task.
  • To compare cognitive mechanisms in individuals with high and low obsessive-compulsive (OC) scores.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a sequential information gathering task with varying sampling costs.
  • Recruited participants from a large population-representative database, matched for intellectual and psychiatric factors.
  • Employed computational modeling to analyze decision-making processes.

Main Results:

  • Individuals with high OC scores sampled more information and performed better in cost-free conditions.
  • Both groups flexibly reduced information gathering when sampling incurred costs.
  • Computational models indicated higher decision thresholds and delayed urgency signals explained increased information sampling in high OC individuals.

Conclusions:

  • Indecisiveness is present across a compulsivity spectrum, extending beyond diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder.
  • Decision-making in indecisiveness can be framed within a decision-theoretic model.
  • Augmented decision thresholds and attenuated urgency signals contribute to indecisive behavior.