Interpretation bias and contamination-based obsessive-compulsive symptoms influence emotional intensity related to disgust and fear

Abstract

Biased processing of disgust-related stimuli is increasingly discussed in addition to fearrelated processing as a maintenance factor for contamination-based obsessive-compulsive disorder (C-OCD). However, the differential impact of fear and disgust on biased processing in C-OCD is not yet completely understood. Because it is difficult to distinguish the two emotions in self-report assessment by directly addressing the specific emotions, a text paragraphbased interpretation bias paradigm was applied to more implicitly assess emotions. For the text-based interpretation bias paradigm, disgust-related, fear-related, disgust-fear-ambiguous and neutral text paragraphs describing everyday life situations were developed and validated in a pre-study (N = 205). Fifty-nine healthy participants watched either disgust-or fear-inducing movies and afterwards rated their experienced emotional response to the text paragraphs. The results show that fear and disgust components of an emotional response to mixed-emotional situations are strongly influenced by the situational context, and across the levels of trait contamination fear people did not differ in their fear experiences to everyday situations (which was overall strong), but in their disgust experiences. These findings highlight the strength of situational context on interpretation bias for mixed-emotional disorders and the important role of disgust for C-OCD.

Attentional Processing of Disgust and Fear and Its Relationship With Contamination-Based Obsessive–Compulsive Symptoms: Stronger Response Urgency to Disgusting Stimuli in Disgust-Prone Individuals

“…All participants also took part in a second experiment, which was randomly performed before or after this experiment and for which we statistically controlled for, although no impact on the dependent variables was found. In this experiment (duration, 30 min), disgust and fear movies were shown, and text statements were rated concerning disgust and fear experience ( 32 ). The study was approved by the local ethics committee of the University of Leipzig (329-14-06102014).…”

Are you looking or looking away? Visual exploration and avoidance of disgust- and fear-stimuli: An eye-tracking study.

“…They assume that the existential threat of a fear stimulus is associated with attentional focusing and engagement, which leads to fast processing, fast behavioral response, and fast stimulus categorization. In one study, we were able to show that fear is possibly associated with a more universal preactivated fear-mindset than disgust (Fink-Lamotte et al, 2020). Yet, the two theories differ with respect to disgust stimuli, from which no imminent threat emanates.…”

Mechanisms and Effectiveness of Imagery Strategies in Reducing Disgust in Contamination-Related Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder: Comparing Imagery Rescripting, Imagery Self-compassion and Mood-Focused Imagery

“…A methodological consideration is that by stringing the three blocks together, the experience of disgust was magnified, which is evident in the main effect block. Emotional sensitization by repetition of disgust experience in well known in other studies (Fink-Lamotte et al, 2020). While these processes should not have influenced the main hypotheses here due to randomization and the focus on within-block change, it is nonetheless important to keep a closer eye on this in future studies.…”