The effect of enhanced responsibility on attentional bias in obsessive–compulsive checkers

•Participants engaged in free-viewing task after experiencing responsibility situation.•OC checker with high responsibility showed attentional bias toward OC threat word.•OC checkers were more anxious under high responsibility situation.•Cognitive strategy reducing perceived responsibility is necessary to OC checker.

The present study investigated whether enhanced responsibility could affect attentional bias in obsessive compulsive checkers. The participants were 69 undergraduate students: 35 students who have obsessive–compulsive checking tendencies and 34 students who have no obsessive–compulsive checking tendencies. All participants were randomly assigned to high or low responsibility conditions and were asked to perform a pill classification task. After performing the task, the vigilance and maintenance of attentional bias toward three emotional words (obsessive–compulsive (OC) threat, negative, positive) were measured by an eye tracker. The results indicate that OC checkers detected OC threat stimuli more quickly than did non-checkers. Furthermore, within the OC checker group, high responsibility conditions revealed a longer latency to initial fixation and a longer maintenance toward OC threat words than low responsibility conditions. However, this difference was not observed in the non-checker group. This result suggests that OC checkers are more anxious under high responsibility situations, leading to vigilance and maintenance patterns toward OC threat words. Therefore, it is necessary to use cognitive strategies to reduce perceived responsibility for OC checkers.