Obsessive-Compulsive Visual Search: A Reexamination of Presence–Absence Asymmetries

Abstract

In previous research, obsessive-compulsive tendencies were associated with longer search times in visual-search tasks. These findings, replicated and extended to a clinical sample, were specific to target-absent trials, with no effect on target-present trials. This selectivity was interpreted as checking behavior in response to mild uncertainty. However, an alternative interpretation is that individuals with high obsessive-compulsive (OC+) tendencies have a specific difficulty with inference about absence. In two large-scale, preregistered, online experiments (conceptual replication: N = 1,007; direct replication: N = 226), we sought to replicate the original finding and elucidate its underlying cause: an increased sensitivity to mild uncertainty or a selective deficiency in inference about absence. Both experiments showed no evidence of prolonged search times in target-absent trials for OC+ individuals. Taken together, our results do not support the notion that inducing mild uncertainty in the form of target absence leads to excessive checking among OC+ individuals.