explicite memory bias in trait anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder

objective: the study was designed to examine explicit memory bias in trait-anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. method: memory bias was examined in three groups of subjects: low-trait  anxious (20 subjects), high-trait anxious (20 subjects), and obsessive compulsive patients (20 subjects) in whom danger schema were activated after they were exposed the threat-related material. the trait-anxious subjects were selected from among university students through a spielberger test. the obsessive-compulsive patients were identified by psychiatrists or clinical psychologists on the basis of dsm-iv criteria. all subjects were tested on explicit memory, and the data was analyzed through analysis of variance. findings: the high trait anxious group demonstrated explicit memory bias against threatening adjectives, whereas the obsessive-compulsive subjects demonstrated explicit memory bias against obsessive threatening adjectives. results: the results demonstrated that both the obsessive- compulsive patients and the high trait-anxious subjects are biased against threat-related material