Overgeneral autobiographical memory in obsessive-compulsive disorder: the differential roles of executive function...

Overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM), a tendency to retrieve events from memory that did not occur at a specific time, is a transdiagnostic mechanism in psychopathology. However, its specific role in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) remains unknown. This study aimed to examine the presence and cue-valence specificity of OGM in OCD, investigate its associations with executive function subcomponents, and explore how OGM and executive dysfunction individually and interactively predict OCD symptom severity.

A total of 112 OCD patients and 101 healthy controls completed the Autobiographical Memory Test to assess OGM, N-back task for working memory, task-switching paradigm for cognitive flexibility, stop signal task for inhibitory control, and Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale for OCD symptom severity. Group comparisons and regression analyses were conducted.

After controlling for depression and anxiety, the OCD group exhibited significantly greater OGM for negative and positive cues compared to controls (ps < 0.001), while showing comparable specificity for neutral cues. Among executive function subcomponents in the OCD group, cognitive flexibility demonstrated the strongest prediction of OGM (β = 0.488, p < .001), followed by working memory (β = 0.362, p = .001), but inhibitory control had no significant correlation with OGM. Furthermore, OGM predicted OCD symptom severity (β = 0.415, p < .001). Cognitive flexibility deficits moderated the relationship between OGM and OCD symptom severity (β = -0.232, p = .039).

OGM in OCD is characterized by specificity to emotional-valence cues, which is linked closely to impaired cognitive flexibility and relates to greater OCD symptom severity. These findings identify OGM and its interaction with cognitive flexibility as key targets for therapeutic intervention in OCD.