Perceptual and memory biases for health-related information in hypochondriacal individuals

• Published in: Journal of psychosomatic research Vol. 47; no. 1; pp. 67 - 78
• Main Authors: Brown, Halle D., Kosslyn, Stephen M., Delamater, Beth, Fama, Jeanne, Barsky, Arthur J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.07.1999; New York, NY Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Analysis of Variance; Attitude to Health; Biological and medical sciences; Case-Control Studies; Explicit memory bias; Female; Humans; Hypochondriasis; Hypochondriasis - psychology; Information processing; Male; Medical sciences; Memory - physiology; Middle Aged; Perceptual bias; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Semantics; Sick Role; Social Class; Somatoform disorders. Psychosomatics; Verbal Learning - physiology; Perceptual bias; Social class; Hypochondriasis; Information processing; Explicit memory bias; Belief; Human; Health; Somatoform disorder; Anxiety; Cognition; Hypochondria; Verbal perception; Explicit memory; Experimental study; Cognitive bias
• ISSN: 0022-3999; 1879-1360
• DOI: 10.1016/S0022-3999(99)00011-2

Problematic health concerns characteristic of hypochondriasis may be better understood with the aid of cognitive, information processing theories. We investigated whether hypochondriacal individuals show perceptual and explicit memory biases favoring health-related information. A clinical sample of hypochondriacs (n=18) and healthy controls (n=22), and a sample of hypochondriacal (n=22) and nonhypochondriacal (n=67) patients referred for Holter monitoring, completed a computerized test of perceiving difficult-to-read words and then an encoding task followed by recall of those words. Contrary to our prediction, hypochondriacal individuals in the clinical sample did not perceive more health- related words than words not related to health. Hypochondriacal individuals in the Holter-monitoring sample showed an unexpected bias against reporting health-related words. Social class may account for some of the group differences in this sample. Hypochondriacal individuals in both samples showed better memory for health-related than nonhealth words.