Choice Blindness, Confabulatory Introspection, and Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms: A New Area of Investigation

Abstract

The current study is the first to investigate confabulatory introspection in relation to clinical psychological symptoms utilizing the Choice Blindness Paradigm (CBP). It was hypothesized that those with obsessive-compulsive symptoms are more likely to confabulate mental states. To test this hypothesis, an experimental choice blindness task was administered in two nonclinical samples (n = 47; n = 76). Results showed that a confabulatory introspection is significantly related to obsessive-compulsive symptoms. There was evidence for its specificity to symptoms of OCD depending on the obsessional theme addressed in the choice blindness task. However, confabulatory introspection was also found to be relevant to other symptoms, including depression and schizotypy. The results highlight a potentially fruitful new area of clinical investigation in the area of insight and self-knowledge, not limited to OCD alone, but potentially other disorders as well.

Factors leading to immersion in obsessions

“…Specifically, the high-OCD group justified choices they did not actually make with more certainty in their language compared to the low-OCD group, but did not differ in how detailed and emotional their language was. As inductive narratives justifying imagined choices on manipulated trials were likened to the OCD narrative individuals with OCD use to justify an imagined state of affairs about reality (Aardema et al, 2014), our findings were somewhat consistent with what the IBA model would predict (Julien et al, 2016).…”

“…Using a pencil and paper version of the CBP, Aardema et al (2014) found that those who confabulated on this task (i.e., failed to notice that their initial choice was swapped out) scored significantly higher on the obsessions subscale of the Vancouver Obsessional Compulsive Inventory than those who did not confabulate. This result could not be explained by participants wanting to present themselves favorably to the experimenter (i.e., social desirability).…”

“…Since participants were reasoning about the events that did not occur (i.e., a choice they did not make), these reasons were analogous to the inductive narrative people with OCD develop to justify an imagined state of affairs about reality. Aardema et al (2014) also concluded that an individual’s forming of an inductive narrative is associated with their level of OCD symptoms. The IBA proposes that the mechanism behind this association is inferential confusion, which is what leads the OCD inductive narrative to be more immersive (Julien et al, 2016).…”

“…Relative to the amount of evidence for an association between inferential confusion and OCD symptoms, there is little experimental evidence for one of the central predictions of the IBA model: that greater levels of inferential confusion lead to increased immersion in the inductive narrative for individuals with OCD. Recently, Aardema et al (2014) presented preliminary evidence suggesting a positive relationship between OCD symptoms and generating an inductive narrative. They induced an unselected sample of community participants to produce confabulatory self-reports via the Choice Blindness Paradigm (CBP; Johansson, Hall, Sikstrom, & Olsson, 2005).…”

“…This result could not be explained by participants wanting to present themselves favorably to the experimenter (i.e., social desirability). Aardema et al (2014) first concluded that inductive narratives can be experimentally generated using the CBP. Since participants were reasoning about the events that did not occur (i.e., a choice they did not make), these reasons were analogous to the inductive narrative people with OCD develop to justify an imagined state of affairs about reality.…”