Revisiting verbal recognition memory in obsessive-compulsive disorder: A computational approach

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Excessive checking behavior in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may stem from memory deficits.
• Previous research explored action and verbal recognition memory in OCD, yielding inconsistent findings.
• This study investigates verbal recognition memory and confidence in relation to subclinical OCD symptoms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To re-examine the link between verbal recognition memory and subclinical OCD symptoms.
• To investigate the role of decision difficulty in recognition memory deficits.
• To assess the relationship between OCD symptoms and confidence in recognition accuracy.

Main Methods:

• Conducted two large-scale experiments involving verbal recognition memory tasks.
• Manipulated recognition difficulty to assess its impact on memory performance.
• Utilized a drift-diffusion model to analyze memory discriminability and confidence.

Main Results:

• Reduced memory discriminability (drift rate) was associated with higher subclinical OCD symptoms.
• This deficit was more pronounced for easier recognition decisions.
• No consistent relationship was found between OCD symptoms and confidence bias or sensitivity.

Conclusions:

• Subclinical OCD symptoms are linked to impaired verbal recognition memory discriminability.
• The findings suggest that memory deficits in OCD are sensitive to decision difficulty.
• Confidence in recognition accuracy does not appear to be consistently affected by OCD symptoms.