Are Compulsive Checkers Impaired in Memory? A Meta-Analytic Review

Abstract

Researchers have hypothesized that compulsive checkers suffer from impairment in explicit memory (e.g., Sher, Frost, & Otto, 1983), low confidence in explicit memory (e.g., McNally & Kohlbeck, 1993), or both. However, empirical findings have been equivocal, possibly due to variability in effect sizes produced by small samples. Combining data across studies may yield more meaningful conclusions than can be surmised from a narrative review. Following a brief review of the literature on checking and memory, we present meta-analytic results suggesting that checkers are impaired on many types of memory tasks (e.g., verbal free recall, verbal cued recall, and recall of actions) and are less confident in recognition than noncheckers. We discuss implications of these findings, suggestions for future research, and limitations of this analysis.

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