Choice Blindness, Confabulatory Introspection, and Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms: A New Area of Investigation

By 8 - Published 17 March 2014

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The current study is the first to investigate confabulatory introspection in relation to clinical psychological symptoms utilizing the Choice Blindness Paradigm (CBP). It was hypothesized that those with obsessive-compulsive symptoms are more like- ly to confabulate mental states. To test this hypothesis, an experimental choice blindness task was administered in two nonclinical samples (n = 47; n = 76). Re- sults showed that a confabulatory introspection is significantly related to obsessive- compulsive symptoms. There was evidence for its specificity to symptoms of OCD depending on the obsessional theme addressed in the choice blindness task. How- ever, confabulatory introspection was also found to be relevant to other symptoms, including depression and schizotypy. The results highlight a potentially fruitful new area of clinical investigation in the area of insight and self-knowledge, not limited to OCD alone, but potentially other disorders as well.

Aardema, F, Johansson, P, Hall, L, Paradisis, S-M, Zidani, M and Roberts, S (2014) Choice Blindness, Confabulatory Introspection, and Obsessiv-Compulsion Symptoms: A New Era of Investigation. International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 7(1), 83-102