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Investigating behavior inhibition in obsessive‐compulsive disorder: Evidence from eye movements
Author(s) -
Hu Yixin,
Liao Rui,
Chen Weiling,
Kong Xiangwei,
Liu Jingyi,
Liu Dongxu,
Maguire Phil,
Zhou Shengqi,
Wang Dawei
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/sjop.12620
Subject(s) - antisaccade task , saccade , psychology , eye movement , audiology , latency (audio) , neuroscience , medicine , electrical engineering , engineering
We investigated the role of inhibition failure in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) through an eye tracking experiment. Twenty‐five subjects with OCD were recruited, as well as 25 with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and 25 healthy controls. A 3 (group: OCD group, GAD group and control group) × 2 (target eccentricity: far and near) × 2 (saccade task: prosaccade and antisaccade) mixed design was used, with all participants completing two sets of tasks involving both prosaccade (eye movement towards a target) and antisaccade (eye movement away from a target). The main outcome was the eye movement index, including the saccade latency (the time interval from the onset of the target screen to the first saccade) and the error rate of saccade direction. The antisaccade latency and antisaccade error rates for OCDs were much higher than those for GADs and healthy controls. OCDs had longer latency and error rates for antisaccades than for prosaccades, and for far‐eccentricity rather than near‐eccentricity stimuli. These results suggest that OCDs experience difficulty with behavior inhibition, and that they have higher visual sensitivity to peripheral stimuli. In particular, they show greatest difficulty in inhibiting behavior directed towards peripheral stimuli.