Free operant observing in humans: a translational approach to compulsive certainty seeking.

Sharon Morein-Zamir,Trevor W Robbins,Verena Eisele,Sonia Shahper,Naomi A Fineberg,Dawn M Eagle,Gonzalo Urcelay

doi:10.1177/1747021817737727

Abstract

Excessive checking is reported in non-clinical populations and is a pervasive symptom in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). We implemented a free-operant task in humans, previously used in rats, wherein participants can “check” to reduce uncertainty. Participants can press an observing key to ascertain which of two main keys will, if pressed, currently lead to rewards. Over a series of experiments, we found that punishment robustly increased observing in non-clinical participants and that observing persisted long after punishment was removed. Moreover, participants appeared insensitive to the initial costs of checking, and a threefold increase in the effort required to observe served to deter participants only to a limited degree. We also assessed observing in OCD patients with no known comorbidities. The patients observed more than control participants and were abnormally insensitive to the introduction of punishment. These findings support the translational value of the task, with similar behaviours in humans and rodents. This paradigm may serve as a unifying platform, promoting interaction between different approaches to analyse adaptive and maladaptive certainty seeking behaviours. Specifically, we demonstrate how seemingly disparate theoretical and empirical approaches can be reconciled synergistically to promote a combined behavioural and cognitive account of certainty seeking.

Highlights

Seeking greater certainty in the face of unpredictability or doubt is commonplace and often an effective approach in uncertain or ambiguous situations
This study presents a line of experiments translating the Observing Response Task (ORT) to humans to assess its utility as a unifying behavioural model of checking
Planned comparisons indicated higher observing in high observers compared to baseline under increased effort, F(1, 71) = 4.83, p = .03, and under increased unpredictability, F(1, 71) = 5.03, p =

Summary

Introduction

Seeking greater certainty in the face of unpredictability or doubt is commonplace and often an effective approach in uncertain or ambiguous situations. Certainty seeking, incorporating checking, and reassurance seeking behaviours are found in OCD and in anxiety disorders, and in other obsessive compulsive and related disorders such as body dysmorphic disorder (Carleton et al, 2012; Coleman, Pieterefesa, Holaway, Coles, & Heimberg, 2011). Active certainty seeking, involving reliance on environmental cues, may be elicited as a coping strategy to alleviate distress due to perceived uncertainty, threat, and excessive doubting. Checking poses a challenge inasmuch as participants have to check something (e.g., whether two stimuli are the same, or whether one locked the door) Such tasks have had to address the role of complex cognitive processes in the checking behaviours assessed, such as visuo-spatial processing, memory for actions, or working memory

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Conclusion