title: Do panic-agoraphobics overestimate distances?
abstract: Twenty-five subjects suffering from Panic Disorder with agoraphobia (PDA) and 25 normal controls (NC) were asked to estimate distances of familiar places of their town and non-distance stimuli. PDA subjects also completed the Mobility Inventory for Agoraphobia (MIA). Subjects with PDA significantly overestimated distances as compared to NC, whereas no significant difference was found on estimates of non-distance stimuli. Within the PDA group, significant correlations were found between distance estimates and subsets of MIA concerning the ways of moving through the environment. Although with caution, given the small sample size and the preliminary character of this study, the results could be interpreted as consistent with a cognitive dysfunction associated with PDA, probably at the level of representational mechanisms of the extrapersonal space.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, 2nd University of Naples, Naples, Italy. aliavarone@libero.it
authors.forename: Dr Alessandro
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Iavarone
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Del Castello
authors.forename: Gennaro
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ruggiero
authors.forename: Tina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Iachini
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000379:Agoraphobia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009949:Orientation; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012858:Size Perception; D012931:Social Environment; D013223:Statistics as Topic