DO NONCLINICAL CHECKERS EXHIBIT DEFICITS IN COGNITIVE CONTROL - TESTSOF AN INHIBITORY CONTROL HYPOTHESIS

We tested the hypothesis that persons who engage in compulsive checkin g may do so to compensate for cognitive errors produced by deficient i nhibitory control. In two experiments, undergraduates were classified by scores on the MOCI checking subscale as checkers or noncheckers. On self-report measures, checkers were significantly more depressed, mor e anxious, more prone to cognitive slips, and more likely to engage in obsessive-compulsive behaviors. However, checkers performed similarly to noncheckers on laboratory tests of inhibitory control of cognition . Checkers and noncheckers were equally able to (1) ignore distractors in a selective attention task, (2) suppress inappropriate word meanin gs in a sentence comprehension task, and (3) inhibit retrieval of to-b e-forgotten items in a memory task. These results suggest that compuls ive checking does not arise from failures of inhibitory control of cog nition.