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The Vancouver Obsessional-Compulsive Inventory (VOCI) is a self-report inventory developed to assess a wide range of Obsessive-Compulsive symptoms. The aim of this study was to investigate psychometric properties of the Persian version of the VOCI in non-clinical samples. A questionnaire package including the VOCI, BDI-II, BAI, MOCI, OCI-R and PSWQ was administered to volunteer undergraduate students (n = 233, 139 females, 94 males) from two Iran universities (Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Allameh Tabatabaei University). All the assessments were repeated in the same sample after 2 weeks. Psychometric analyses were run to assess reliability and validity of the Persian version of the VOCI. We converged an exploratory factor analysis to test the factor structure. The VOCI-Persian had good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent and divergent validity. The present study showed that the factor structure of the questionnaire consisted of five main factors: VOCI Contamination, Checking, Obsessions, Hoarding and Perfectionism/Indecisiveness. Further studies are needed to develop psychometric tools with stronger diagnostic performance for OCD assessment.

The concept of meaning has undergone many changes in the course of scientific study of language, thought and behavior. At first, it was explained as something which happens in the mind and then is changed to a product of association of ideas. Today, however, new meaning of meaning has emerged with the emphasis on the experiential basis as has been formulated in the concept of metaphoric expression. In this paper, we report a preliminary study on meaning as measured by a semantic-associative test in four different cultures (Iranian, German, Arabic and American). The findings have been explained in the framework of the primary metaphors and embodiment theory.

Past research has found a high prevalence of neuropsychological deficits and neurological soft signs in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A close relationship between OCD and depression has also been indicated in the literature. However, many aspects of this association remain unclear. In this study we compared neuropsychological functioning and neurological soft signs of 46 OCD patients who were off psychotropic medication (21 with significant depressive symptoms and 25 without) with 25 non-patient comparison subjects. The patients were matched to the comparison group with regard to age, sex, education, marital status and handedness. There were significant differences between OCD patients and the non-patient comparison group on neuropsychological functioning but not on neurological soft signs. As far as working memory concerns there was a significant difference between the OCD depressed and nondepressed groups. But we found no evidence that the neuropsychological functions such as cognitive flexibility, problem solving and spatial perception in OCD to be attributable to comorbid depression. The pattern of neuropsychological deficits in this sample of OCD patients is suggestive of orbito-frontal as well as dorso-lateral prefrontal cortical dysfunction.

The psychometric properties of the Persian-language version of Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory- Revised (OCI-R) were studied in a sample of Iranian college students (N = 450). The total and each of the subscales of OCI-R-Persian demonstrated very high internal consistency as well as high test-retest reliability. Convergent and divergent validity of the OCI-R-Persian total scale and subscales were satisfactory. In general, the OCI-R-Persian appears to be a reliable and valid measure of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in this non-clinical sample of Iranian college students.