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Reduced cognitive inhibition in obsessive—compulsive disorder
Author(s) -
Enright Simon J.,
Beech Anthony R.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1993.tb01028.x
Subject(s) - psychology , cognitive inhibition , priming (agriculture) , facilitation , negative priming , cognition , anxiety disorder , obsessive compulsive , repetition priming , anxiety , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , lexical decision task , selective attention , clinical psychology , psychiatry , botany , germination , biology
On a semantic negative priming task designed to investigate putative inhibitory mechanisms of selective attention, obsessive–compulsive disordered (OCD) subjects were distinguished from all other sub‐categories of anxiety disorder (OAD). OCD subjects failed to show any priming effects in the repetition priming condition and exhibited facilitation in the semantic priming condition (i.e. shorter reaction times to previously ignored stimuli). OAD subjects demonstrated negative priming (i.e. longer reaction times to previously ignored stimuli) in both experimental conditions. These results are interpreted in terms of reduced cognitive inhibition in OCD and the implications of this hypothesis are discussed. Parallels are also drawn with previous studies regarding the results of high schizotypes and schizophrenic subjects using negative priming tasks.