Project Details
Projekt
Dynamic updating of beliefs in obsessive-compulsive disorder: Influence of confidence and disorder-specific context
Subject Area
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 461947532
Background: Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) suffer from repeated intrusions and engage in mental and behavioral rituals to avoid harm. Distortions in information processing may contribute to core symptoms such as doubt and repetitive checking. In dynamic and uncertain contexts, subjects with OCD may have trouble building reliable internal representations of their environment. Aims: This project investigates dynamic belief updating (DynBU) in OCD with particular attention to the influences of subjective confidence and a disorder-specific context. Hypotheses: We assume that even in emotionally neutral learning environments, individuals with OCD have difficulty adapting their behavioral responses and beliefs in volatile environments. Having difficulties in assessing the "noise" (expected uncertainty), we expect them to show constantly increased learning rates even during relatively stable phases of the experiment, with little difference from learning at real change points. We predict that this information processing deficit is further elevated in contexts that evoke central fears of individuals with OCD, i.e. in which they perceive an increased responsibility for avoiding harm. In such subjectively significant contexts increased arousal level might make it even more difficult for them to identify changes in their environment and use them adaptively. Planned Methods: The study examines DynBU in individuals with OCD and healthy controls using the standard change-point task of the Research Unit ("confetti cannon task"). In addition, we will use a disorder-specific modification of the learning task, which addresses key concerns of subjects with OCD, e.g. increased responsibility for harm avoidance. In half of the trials subjective confidence will be surveyed. Neural responses will be measured using EEG and arousal responses are recorded using pupillary responses. We will relate neurocognitive mechanisms of DynBU and arousal to general and disorder-specific clinical features. Expected impact: Our results will provide a detailed characterization of information processing deficits in individuals with OCD during DynBU and how these are related to psychopathological, psychophysiological (arousal), and neural correlates. We will thus contribute to the overarching goals of the RU, targeting especially the influence of clinically relevant environmental context (aim 2) and of psychopathological dimensions and manifestations (aim 3) on DynBU. In a possible second phase of the project, we will use our findings to develop and refine treatment options that are better tailored to the psychological processes involved in OCD.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Co-Investigator
Professor Dr. Julian Schmitz
