Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognition
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1490147

Proactive control for conflict resolution is intact in subclinical obsessive-compulsive individuals

Provisionally accepted
Silvia Fornaro Silvia Fornaro 1,2*Antonino Visalli Antonino Visalli 3Giada Viviani Giada Viviani 4Ettore Ambrosini Ettore Ambrosini 1,2,3Antonino Vallesi Antonino Vallesi 1,2*
  • 1 Padua Neuroscience Center, University of Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy
  • 2 Department of Neuroscience, University Hospital of Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy
  • 3 Department of General Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy
  • 4 Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, School of Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Obsessive-compulsive (OC) traits (i.e., tendency to implement stereotyped behaviors to avoid negative consequences) are transversally observed in psychiatric disorders largely differing in terms of clinical manifestations and etiopathogenesis. Interestingly, OC traits were also extensively found in the prodromal phases of the full-blown psychopathology and in healthy relatives of affected individuals. Moreover, OC traits were found to be associated – and possibly underlain by – cognitive control impairments. Nonetheless, the role of such interplay in the onset of OC disorders is yet to be understood. We hypothesized that OC traits are associated with abnormalities in proactively implement cognitive control for solving conflict. Methods: We administered healthy individuals (n = 104) with the perifoveal spatial Stroop task to measure their ability of solving conflict in a proactive fashion, and with Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (OCI) to stratify population according to the severity of OC traits. Results: Analysis of response times by means of Linear Mixed-effect models revealed that proactive control performance was not associated with and the severity of OC traits. Furthermore, an equivalence test (Two One-Sided Test) revealed that the association between OCI scores and task performance was equivalent to zero. Conclusions: These results suggest that the interplay between OC traits and proactive control abnormalities might not contribute to the development of OC-related disorders. Therefore, the role of other cognitive endophenotypes should be scrutinized for exploiting alternative prevention and intervention strategies.

    Keywords: Obsessive-compulsive traits, proactive control, Transdiagnostic, Risk factors, Conflict Resolution, Stroop

    Received: 02 Sep 2024; Accepted: 08 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Fornaro, Visalli, Viviani, Ambrosini and Vallesi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Silvia Fornaro, Padua Neuroscience Center, University of Padua, Padua, 35129, Veneto, Italy
    Antonino Vallesi, Department of Neuroscience, University Hospital of Padua, Padua, 35128, Veneto, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.