Obsessive-compulsive tendencies predict reduced access to affective reactions to auditory stimuli

The Seeking Proxies for Internal States (SPIS) model of OCD posits that reduced access to internal states plays a key role in the development and maintenance of the disorder. The current work sought to provide further support for the model's central claim that obsessive-compulsive tendencies are associated with reduced access to internal states.

Participants (N = 170) listened to 60 sound stimuli, rated how each one made them feel, and completed a measure of obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Following past procedure, we compared participants' ratings to each sound's normative valence rating, such that higher deviations between the ratings reflect a noisier perception of affective internal states.

As hypothesized, higher obsessive-compulsive tendencies predicted greater deviations for both normatively-positive and normatively-negative sounds.

The current work provides additional, novel support for the SPIS model, showing that with increasing obsessive-compulsive tendencies, people exhibited reduced attunement to how auditory stimuli made them feel.