Hd. Brown et al., CAN PATIENTS WITH OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN PERCEPTS AND MENTAL IMAGES - A SIGNAL-DETECTION ANALYSIS, Journal of abnormal psychology, 103(3), 1994, pp. 445-454
Signal detection analysis was used to test three hypotheses for repeti
tive thoughts and behaviors characteristic of obsessive-compulsive dis
order (OCD). Patients might have (a) low sensitivity for the differenc
e between having seen something or having imagined seeing it, (b) a hi
gh criterion for this discrimination, or (c) difficulty associating co
ntext with information in memory. Subjects judged viewed words or imag
ined words and later indicated which were actually seen. Patients with
OCD discriminated seen from imaged words significantly better than no
rmal control subjects, as evidenced by higher d' scores on a recogniti
on memory task. Groups did not differ in response criterion, beta, use
d to decide whether words had been seen or imaged. Implications for th
e study of OCD from an information-processing perspective are discusse
d.