The effects of obsessive-compulsive symptoms and disorder-relevant stimuli on the dynamics of selective attention

Abstract

Two studies were conducted in order to examine the link between selective attention and trait and state OCD symptoms. Selective attention was both considered as a dynamic process in time by investigating attentional bias scores at trial level and as a stable concept by investigating traditional attentional bias scores. In the first study we investigated the difference in selective attention between a group scoring high (n = 32) and low (n = 32) on contamination fear at a cross-sectional level. In the second study we administered a dot probe task before and after an experimental manipulation of OCD symptoms (n = 35) or a neutral induction (n = 33) in a convenience sample in order to determine the effects of state OCD symptoms on selective attention. In the current studies we found no evidence for either a trait-related presence of attention bias nor for influences of experimentally induced contamination fear. Furthermore, baseline selective attention did not predict symptoms after an OCD symptom induction. These results point to either a more complex relationship between OCD and selective attention than an unidirectional relationship or suggest that selective attention may not be as important for obsessive-compulsive disorders as it is for anxiety disorders.