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Processing of local and global visual features in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2006

STEFFEN MORITZ  and
MIKE WENDT
STEFFEN MORITZ
Affiliation:
University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Clinical Neuropsychology Unit, Hamburg, Germany
MIKE WENDT
Affiliation:
Institute for Cognitive Research, Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
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Abstract

Research conducted with the Rey-figure task has suggested that patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) process local aspects of a complex stimulus more efficiently than the overall gestalt. The aim of the present study was to investigate if this “local bias” is established already during early stimulus encoding or occurs only during later processing, once a percept has been formed (e.g., memory retrieval). To this end, responding to local and global targets of hierarchical letters (e.g., an “E” composed out of small “T”s) was assessed in 30 OCD patients and 28 healthy controls. OCD patients and controls performed comparably on all parameters. These results lend no support to the notion of an early perceptual bias towards local elements in OCD patients. It remains to be tested whether a bias towards local features is confined to situations where local and global features compete for selection. (JINS, 2006, 12, 566–569.)

Keywords

Obsessive-compulsive disorderAttentionVisual processingLocal-global processingMemoryReaction time
Type
BRIEF COMMUNICATION
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , July 2006 , pp. 566 - 569
Copyright
© 2006 The International Neuropsychological Society

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