Japanese researchers found that kleptomaniacs react similarly to pictures of shops as drug addicts do to pictures of drugs.
Did you ever steal candy as a kid? Not very neat, but can happen once. It only gets serious when you steal weekly or even daily. Not out of poverty or a lack of stuff, but purely because you can’t resist the impulse to take something without paying for it. People who have such morbid stealthiness are called kleptomaniacs.
Of American Psychiatric Association recognizes kleptomania as an addiction. Scientists at Kyoto University were therefore curious to see whether kleptomaniacs react to pictures of shops in a similar way as drug addicts react to pictures of narcotics. That appears to be the case, the team writes in it International Journal of Neuropsychoparhmacology.
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Triggers
The Japanese scientists recruited 27 control subjects (who do not have the urge to steal) and 11 patients who had been diagnosed with kleptomania by a psychiatrist. The research group consisted of both men and women.
The test subjects were presented with various photos and videos. These included images that were of interest to kleptomaniacs, such as pictures of shops and products. There were also random photos, such as of nature. By measuring the eye movements and brain activity of the participants, the researchers were able to monitor how they perceived and processed certain stimuli.
For example, when viewing pictures of shops, it turned out that the viewing behavior and brain activity of kleptomaniacs differed from those of control subjects. Think of the number of fixations on a certain subject in the photo, pupil size, and the number of times someone blinks. Researchers saw reduced brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for impulse control. Similar responses in the prefrontal cortex have been observed in drug addicts when seeing pictures of drugs.
Viewing behavior
Frans Cornelissen, professor of visual neuroscience at the University Medical Center Groningen, does not find it surprising that the kleptomaniacs make different eye movements than the control subjects, depending on the image that is shown. “We know that the eye movements people make are very strongly linked to the purpose with which they look,” he says. “And if your goal is to steal something, you will look at certain situations and people differently than if you don’t have a clear goal, or just go shopping.”
What he missed in this study is a condition in which the control subjects were given a specific assignment, such as “check whether you can steal something unseen in the situation shown” and “check whether there is anything interesting to see in this photo”. For example, the control subjects and the kleptomaniacs would have the same goal, which would make it easier to determine what caused the differences in viewing behavior.
Apart from that, Cornelissen is positive about the research: “I think the most special thing about the finding is that people with kleptomania also display their viewing behavior in an experimental situation and when looking at photos. There really isn’t anything to steal. Apparently, the image more or less automatically elicits this behaviour. That is undoubtedly one symptom of their kleptomania.”
Sources: International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, New AtlasFrancis Cornelissen
Beeld: Ignard ten Have/123RF