Shorter communicationAn exploration of economic reasoning in hoarding disorder patients
Highlights
► Explored economic reasoning in hoarding patients, OCD patients, and healthy controls. ► Iowa gambling task and a dissonance reduction task were used. ► No evidence was found for problems of economic reasoning in hoarding patients.
Section snippets
Participants
One hundred seven adult participants met inclusion criteria of age 18–65; fluent in English; absence of lifetime bipolar, psychotic, developmental, or substance use disorders; absence of medical conditions known to impact brain function; and (for the clinical groups) symptom duration of 1 year or more and Clinician’s Global Impressions (CGI; Guy, 1976) rating of 4 (moderately ill) or higher. Furthermore, participants were included if they could be classified into one of three diagnostic groups:
Sample description
Table 1 shows that the OCD group was younger on average than were the hoarding and healthy control groups. Subsequent analyses therefore corrected for age. As expected, the hoarding group exhibited higher SI-R scores than did the other two groups (the OCD group also showed some elevation, but were well within the nonclinical range on the SI-R). The OCD and healthy control groups’ SI-R scores were somewhat lower than those found in previous research (Frost et al., 2004). The two clinical groups
Discussion
The HD patients in the present study reported higher fear of decision-making and lower positive feelings about decision-making than did OCD patients or healthy controls, replicating and extending the findings of previous research (Frost and Gross, 1993, Frost and Shows, 1993, Samuels et al., 2002, Steketee et al., 2003). However, they did not exhibit abnormalities of economic reasoning on the behavioral tasks used. HD patients performed adequately on the IGT, a finding that contrasts with
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by NIMH grant #R01MH074934 to Dr. Tolin.
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Cited by (19)
Neurocognitive functioning in hoarding disorder
2021, Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersCitation Excerpt :Decision-making quality is sometimes indexed by performance on gambling tasks, which balance profitability with risk. Hoarding participants have typically shown no differences from controls on these tasks (Blom et al., 2011; Grisham et al., 2007, 2010; Tolin & Villavicencio, 2011a). The D-KEFS Tower Test, Tower of London, and Stockings of Cambridge, in contrast, are tests of planning and problem solving that require participants to use the fewest number of moves to arrive at a goal position while maintaining rules.
Information processing in hoarding disorder: A systematic review of the evidence
2021, Journal of Affective Disorders ReportsCitation Excerpt :The previous literature review (Woody et al., 2014) was unable to draw firm conclusions about impaired attention in HD as their studies presented a more varied pattern of results, however by using more stringent criteria on the studies included or excluded, this review is able to conclude that those with HD appear to have impaired attention abilities, as measured by performance on neuropsychological tests. This matches the high levels of self- report ratings of inattention by those with HD (Fitch and Cougle, 2013), and is reinforced by studies which suggest that on measures of ADHD (inattention subscale), those with HD score approximately four standard deviations above the mean when compared to control groups (Grisham et al., 2007, Tolin and Villavicencio, 2011). This is also supported by findings from neurobiological studies (Slyne and Tolin, 2014) which suggest a relationship between HD and dysfunction in the anterior cingulate cortex (an area of the brain associated with decision making and visual attention).
Perceived decision-making styles among individuals with obsessive-compulsive and hoarding disorders
2019, Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersCitation Excerpt :Investigations using self-report measures show that both OCD and HD are associated with decisional procrastination or indecisiveness (e.g. Ferrari & McCown, 1994; Fitch & Cougle, 2013; Frost & Gross, 1993; Frost & Shows, 1993; Grisham, Norberg, Williams, Certoma, & Kadib, 2010). Additionally, self-reports show that people with OCD are less confident in their decision-making abilities (Nedeljkovic & Kyrios, 2007), and that people who hoard tend to delay decisions, feel regret after making decisions, and report more fears about – and less positive attitudes toward – decision-making (Fitch & Cougle, 2013; Frost, Tolin, Steketee, & Oh, 2011; Grisham, Norberg, Williams, Certoma, & Kadib, 2010; Kyrios et al., 2018; Steketee, Frost, & Kyrios, 2003; Tolin & Villavicencio, 2011; Wincze, Steketee, & Frost, 2007). In studies employing laboratory decision-making tasks, people with OCD and people with HD are slower to make decisions and report greater distress about decisions when compared to clinical and healthy controls (Foa et al., 2003; Grisham et al., 2010; Luchian, McNally, & Hooley, 2007; Tolin, Kiehl, Worhunsky, Book, & Maltby, 2009; Wincze et al., 2007).
A model-based analysis of decision making under risk in obsessive-compulsive and hoarding disorders
2017, Journal of Psychiatric ResearchCitation Excerpt :Lawrence et al. (2006) found evidence of a “link between hoarding and [increased] risky behavior on the IGT,” while the OCD group did not differ from controls. In contrast, neither Grisham et al. (2007), nor Tolin and Villavicencio (2011) found that hoarding participants differed from controls on the IGT (Grisham et al., 2007; Tolin and Villavicencio, 2011). A large study by Mackin and colleagues found no differences between HD, OCD, or age matched controls on the IGT (Mackin et al., 2015).
Review of cognitive performance in hoarding disorder
2014, Clinical Psychology ReviewCitation Excerpt :In another study, hoarding and washing, but not other types of OCD symptoms, predicted worse performance on the IGT, controlling for OCD severity, depressive symptoms, anxious symptoms, age, education, and verbal IQ (Lawrence et al., 2006). In contrast, three studies have found no group differences in IGT performance or learning trajectories (Blom et al., 2011; Grisham et al., 2007; Tolin & Villavicencio, 2011a). Similarly, Grisham et al. (2010) found no group differences on the Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT).
The profile of executive function in OCD hoarders and hoarding disorder
2014, Psychiatry ResearchCitation Excerpt :However, direct group comparisons again demonstrated graded performance with no significant differences. Thus, it is possible that weakness in cognitive flexibility in OCD and hoarders are a matter of degree (see also Tolin and Villavicencio, 2011). This weakness may also become more pronounced in older adults as it may interact with normal aging related decline (Ayers et al., 2013).