Background and objectives

Repetitive checking, a frequently reported compulsive behavior associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), may, at least in part, result from a lack of memory confidence. Surprisingly, numerous studies have shown that when participants repeatedly perform an action and check that they performed it correctly, memory confidence decreases across repetitions, suggesting that repeated checking produces memory distrust. It is not clear, however, whether the checking component of each trial is critical for the decrease in confidence to occur. Five experiments tested whether the checking component is either necessary or sufficient to produce memory distrust.

Methods

Participants repeatedly turned on and off virtual stove burners, with some conditions checking that the burners were off on each trial. Memory for the specific burners turned on and off was tested on the first and last trials, along with memory confidence.

Results

Confidence decreased across trials even when the checking component was eliminated. However, increasing the number of times each person checked on each trial did not decrease confidence.

Limitations

A sample of individuals formally diagnosed with OCD was not tested. Also, our results only speak to massed (within-trial) checking, not spaced checking occurring over longer time intervals.

Conclusions

Whereas we consistently replicated the increase in memory distrust across repeated trials that is typically found with the stove-checking task, the checking component of each trial is neither necessary nor sufficient for the accrual of memory distrust. The build-up of proactive interference across repeated trials may cause the memory distrust.

中文翻译：

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并非所有检查都会降低记忆信心：对强迫症的影响。

背景和目标

重复检查是一种经常报告的与强迫症 (OCD) 相关的强迫行为，可能至少部分是由于缺乏记忆信心造成的。令人惊讶的是，许多研究表明，当参与者反复执行一个动作并检查他们是否正确执行时，记忆信心会随着重复而降低，这表明重复检查会产生记忆不信任。然而，尚不清楚每个试验的检查部分是否对发生置信度下降至关重要。五个实验测试了检查组件是否必要或足以产生记忆不信任。

方法

参与者反复打开和关闭虚拟炉灶燃烧器，并在某些条件下检查每次试验时燃烧器是否关闭。在第一次和最后一次试验中测试了特定燃烧器打开和关闭的记忆，以及记忆信心。

结果

即使消除了检查组件，信心也会在试验中下降。然而，增加每个人在每次试验中检查的次数并没有降低信心。

限制

没有对正式诊断为强迫症的个体样本进行测试。此外，我们的结果只涉及集中（试验中）检查，而不是在较长时间间隔内发生的间隔检查。

结论

尽管我们始终在反复试验中重复出现记忆不信任的增加，这通常在炉子检查任务中发现，但每次试验的检查部分对于记忆不信任的累积既不必要也不充分。在反复试验中积累的主动干扰可能会导致记忆不信任。