IMAGES AND DOUBTS IN INTRUSIVE COGNITIVE ACTIVITY

Intrusive thoughts are variously reported as images, thoughts, doubts, impulses etc. Recent accounts of emotional processing make important distinctions between cognitive activity in verbal form and images. The comparison of verbal intrusions and images was made on archival data about intrusive cognitions from 628 university students. Images and doubts (a verbal form) occurring together were perceived as more difficult to dismiss than either images or doubts alone. In addition, images and doubts together were more frequent, more probable, and required more effort to counter than images alone. Likewise, images and doubts together and doubts alone were more worrisome and more frequently triggered by various stimuli than images alone. These results suggest that cognitive intrusions identified as a mixture of doubts and images are qualitatively different and more troublesome than those identified as either doubts or images. These findings are discussed in terms of current accounts of emotional processing.