Perceptual and memory biases for health-related information in hypochondriacal individuals

Problematic health concerns characteristic of hypochondriasis may be better understood with the aid of cognitive, information processing theories. We investigated whether hypochondriacal individuals show perceptual: and expli cit memory biases favoring health-related information. A clinical sample of hypochondriacs (n=18) and healthy controls (n=22), and a sample of hypocho ndriacal (n=22) and nonhypochondriacal (n=67) patients referred for Holter monitoring. completed a computerized test of perceiving difficult-to-read w ords and then an encoding task followed by recall of those words. Contrary to our prediction:, hypochondriacal individuals in the clinical sample did not perceive more health-related words than words not related to health. Hy pochondriacal individuals in the Holter-monitoring sample showed: an unexpe cted bias against reporting health-related words;. Social class may account for some of the group differences in this sample. Hypochondriacal individu als in both samples showed better memory for health-related than nonhealth words. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc.