Not Just right experiences as ironic result of perseverative checking

Objective: patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocD) typically report to have “not just right experiences” (NJRE). up till now it is unclear which behavioral ocD features may give rise to NJREs. We used an induced checking
paradigm to experimentally study whether perseverative checking elicits NJREs.

Method: two experiments separately tested this hypothesis among n = 48 (Experiment i) and n = 55 (Experiment ii) healthy participants. We used a virtual checking task, in which participants either checked gas stoves or light bulbs.
all participants started and ended with a trial in which they checked a gas stove (i.e., pre- and post-test). in between, the experimental group repeatedly checked the gas stove (i.e., relevant checking), while the control group repeatedly checked light bulbs (i.e., irrelevant checking). at pre- and post-test, all participants answered questions about the corresponding gas stove checking trial (i.e., memory confidence, vividness and details) and rated their level of NJRE.

Results: in line with previous research, both experiments showed that relevant checking (as opposed to irrelevant checking) resulted in reduced memory confidence and less vivid and detailed recollections of the last checking trial. Most importantly, both studies found a medium effect for increased NJREs after relevant checking compared to irrelevant checking. Since not all results reached statistical significance in the individual studies, we combined the findings in a meta-analysis that clearly confirmed our hypotheses.

Conclusions: Data of Experiment i and ii strongly suggest that repeated checking results in NJRE.