Cognitive functioning in bulimia: Comparison with depression

Abstract

The neuropsychological test performance of groups of female outpatients with major depression or bulimia nervosa was examined. Compared to normal controls, both groups were impaired in learning and recalling a list of unrelated words and in generating the names of famous people, and both groups showed elevated scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and the State and Trait Anxiety Scales. In addition, the bulimic but not the depressed sample made more rule violations than did controls on a design-fluency task. Both patient groups generated normal numbers of correct responses on letter, category, and design-fluency tests; they also performed normally on the Symbol Digit Modalities Test, a version of the Brown-Peterson short-term memory test, and on a test of verbal recognition memory. Thus, similar focal neuropsychological deficits can be demonstrated in outpatients with bulimia or depression. In addition, bulimia but not depression may be characterized by a previously unrecognized cognitive impairment: the tendency to violate task rules. © 1990, The Psychonomic Soceity, Inc.. All rights reserved.