Further Evidence That Repeated Checking Leads to Reduced Memory Confidence, Vividness and Detail: New Evidence That Repeated Object Exposure Also Results in Memory Distrust

A narrative review of factors affecting memory confidence in the context of compulsive checking: A search for evidence-based potential therapeutic targets to improve memory confidence

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

According to current models of compulsive checking, memory confidence greatly contributes to the development and maintenance of checking behaviours. However, how to intervene in memory confidence in an evidence-based manner has not yet been fully understood. Thus, the purpose of the current paper was to identify the factors influencing memory confidence through the review of experimental evidence.

METHODS

PubMed, Google Scholar, OpenGrey and ProQuest databases were searched by combining two sets of keywords related to memory confidence and checking. Our search yielded 24 experiments. Due to the considerable heterogeneity of the studies regarding questionnaires, tasks and paradigms used, data were synthesized using a narrative review approach.

RESULTS

Six factors emerged from a thorough review of the literature, including negative memory belief, higher memory standard, inflated sense of responsibility, familiarization with the checked stimuli, number of checks and anxious valence of the checked stimuli.

CONCLUSION

The findings have important implications for the treatment of compulsive checking. We suggested general guidelines to translate these factors into a novel intervention to increase memory confidence in compulsive checkers.

Memory confidence and memory accuracy deterioration following repeated checking: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Rachman (2002) proposed a reciprocal detrimental relationship between repeated checking and memory confidence. Many experimental studies have indicated that repeated checking causes memory confidence deterioration while having no or little impact on memory accuracy. Thus, our main objective was to carry out a comprehensive meta-analysis to synthesize the existing research. Investigating the potential heterogeneity across studies using several moderator variables was also of interest.

METHODS

The comprehensive search of several databases yielded 29 studies comprising 67 substudies (N = 2180). Considering the substantial heterogeneity across these (sub)studies, data were analyzed using a random-effects meta-analytic approach. Subgroup analyses and meta-regressions were also carried out to explain some of the heterogeneity across studies.

RESULTS

The pooled effect size (Hedges' g) was equal to 0.870 (95% CI = 0.712-1.027, p < 0.001) for memory confidence and 0.213 (95% CI = 0.118-0.307, p < 0.001) for memory accuracy. However, we found evidence of publication bias in the literature. For both outcome variables, the effect was larger in studies inducing high responsibility or using real stimuli. A greater number of repeated checks was only associated with memory confidence decline.

LIMITATIONS

Results obtained from the analogue samples may have lower generalizability to people with OCD.

CONCLUSIONS

Repeated checking considerably deteriorates memory confidence while having a minor effect on memory accuracy. It is not clear whether memory accuracy contributes to memory confidence deterioration, particularly because memory accuracy declines were moderate in studies inducing high responsibility or using real objects.

Not all checking decreases memory confidence: Implications for obsessive-compulsive disorder

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Repetitive checking, a frequently reported compulsive behavior associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), may, at least in part, result from a lack of memory confidence. Surprisingly, numerous studies have shown that when participants repeatedly perform an action and check that they performed it correctly, memory confidence decreases across repetitions, suggesting that repeated checking produces memory distrust. It is not clear, however, whether the checking component of each trial is critical for the decrease in confidence to occur. Five experiments tested whether the checking component is either necessary or sufficient to produce memory distrust.

METHODS

Participants repeatedly turned on and off virtual stove burners, with some conditions checking that the burners were off on each trial. Memory for the specific burners turned on and off was tested on the first and last trials, along with memory confidence.

RESULTS

Confidence decreased across trials even when the checking component was eliminated. However, increasing the number of times each person checked on each trial did not decrease confidence.

LIMITATIONS

A sample of individuals formally diagnosed with OCD was not tested. Also, our results only speak to massed (within-trial) checking, not spaced checking occurring over longer time intervals.

CONCLUSIONS

Whereas we consistently replicated the increase in memory distrust across repeated trials that is typically found with the stove-checking task, the checking component of each trial is neither necessary nor sufficient for the accrual of memory distrust. The build-up of proactive interference across repeated trials may cause the memory distrust.