Doubting what you already know: Uncertainty regarding state transitions is associated with obsessive compulsive symptoms.

ABSTRACT: Obsessive compulsive (OC) symptoms involve excessive information gathering (e.g., checking, reassurance-seeking), and uncertainty about possible, often catastrophic, future events. Here we propose that these phenomena are the result of excessive uncertainty regarding state transitions (transition uncertainty): a computational impairment in Bayesian inference leading to a reduced ability to use the past to predict the present and future, and to oversensitivity to feedback (i.e. prediction errors). Using a computational model of Bayesian learning under uncertainty in a reversal learning task, we investigate the relationship between OC symptoms and transition uncertainty. Individuals high and low in OC symptoms performed a task in which they had to detect shifts (i.e. transitions) in cue-outc

SUBMITTER: Fradkin I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7046195 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature