Bulaşma Kirlenme Kaygısı ve Kontrol Etme Düzeyinin Dikkat Yanlılıkları ile Olan İlişkisinin Çeşitli Değişkenler Bağlamında İncelenmesi: Bir Göz İzleme Çalışması

Abstract

Various biases play a role in the etiology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Cognitive models indicate that OCD is influenced by interpretation bias, memory bias and attentional bias. Studies conducted in the past to understand the nature of attentional biases in OCD have used reaction time paradigms and obtained inconsistent findings. Eye-tracking technology is promising in investigating attentional bias by overcoming the limitations of reaction time paradigms. This study aimed to examine how attentional biases differ in university students with high and low levels of contamination fear and checking symptoms, which are subtypes of OCD. In addition, it was aimed to evaluate the relationships between obsessive beliefs, disgust propensity and sensitivity, memory and cognitive confidence with attentional bias. For this purpose, the selection of images to be used in eye-tracking measurement was first carried out. The images were tested in the pilot study. In the screening study (n=774), participants with high (n=10) and low (n=10) levels of contamination fear and participants with high (n=10) and low (n=10) levels of checking were identified to participate in the main study. Participants in the contamination fear condition were exposed to disgust-neutral and threat-neutral image pairs; while participants in the checking condition were exposed to checking-neutral and threat-neutral image pairs. Measures were collected through eye-tracking device regarding which type of image they first looked at and speed of initial fixation (vigilance bias), how long their first gaze lasted (disengagement bias), how many times and for how long they looked at the images (maintenance bias). As a result, this study showed that the high contamination fear group looked faster, fewer times, and for a shorter duration at threat images; whereas the high checking group looked faster and for a longer duration at checking images, and looked at threat images for a longer duration compared to neutral images. All findings were discussed within the scope of the literature. The importance of the study, its limitations, recommendations for future studies, and clinical implications of the thesis were evaluated.