Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder are impaired in associative learning based on external feedback

  • M. M. Nielen, J. A. den Boer, H. G. O. M. Smid
  • Journal:
    Psychological Medicine / Volume 39 / Issue 9 / September 2009
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    26 February 2009, pp. 1519-1526
  • Background

    Patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) have to repeat their actions before feeling satisfied that the action reached its intended goal. Learning theory predicts that this may be due to a failure in the processing of external feedback.

    Method

    We examined the performance of 29 OCD patients and 28 healthy volunteers on an associative learning task, in which initial learning is based solely on external feedback signals. Feedback valence was manipulated with monetary gains and losses.

    Results

    As predicted, OCD patients were impaired during initial, external feedback-driven learning but not during later learning stages. The emotional salience of the feedback modulated learning during the initial stage in patients and controls alike. During later learning stages, however, patients approached near-normal performance with rewarding feedback but continued to produce deficient learning with punishing feedback.

    Conclusion

    OCD patients have a fundamental impairment in updating behavior based on the external outcome of their actions, possibly mediated by faulty error signals in response selection processes.