An incremental dual-task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty, affective content and threat value.

There is accumulating evidence that task demands and psychological states can affect perceived pain intensity. Different accounts have been proposed to explain this attenuation based either on how limited attentional resources are allocated to the pain stimulus or on how the threat value of the pain...

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Main Authors: Quoc C Vuong, Angela Owen, Kehinde Akin-Akinyosoye, Vera Araujo-Soares
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2018-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6226192?pdf=render
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author Quoc C Vuong
Angela Owen
Kehinde Akin-Akinyosoye
Vera Araujo-Soares
author_facet Quoc C Vuong
Angela Owen
Kehinde Akin-Akinyosoye
Vera Araujo-Soares
author_sort Quoc C Vuong
collection DOAJ
description There is accumulating evidence that task demands and psychological states can affect perceived pain intensity. Different accounts have been proposed to explain this attenuation based either on how limited attentional resources are allocated to the pain stimulus or on how the threat value of the pain stimulus biases attention. However, the evidence for both proposals remains mixed. Here we introduce an incremental dual-task paradigm in which participants were asked to detect pain on their fingertip without any additional tasks during baseline phases or while concurrently detecting visual targets during task phases. The force applied to participants' fingertip in all phases increased incrementally until they detected moderate pain. In Experiment 1, we used coloured shapes and in Experiment 2 we used affective images as visual targets. We also manipulated the threat value of the pain stimulus in Experiment 2. For both experiments, we found that a concurrent task attenuated perceived pain intensity: mean force was significantly greater for the same moderate pain during task compared to baseline phases. Furthermore although task difficulty and affective content did not affect pain perception, the threat value of the pain stimulus moderated the magnitude of pain attenuation.
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spelling doaj.art-8a06a4855fff42419f09d44dba95ce222022-12-22T00:04:25ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032018-01-011311e020702310.1371/journal.pone.0207023An incremental dual-task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty, affective content and threat value.Quoc C VuongAngela OwenKehinde Akin-AkinyosoyeVera Araujo-SoaresThere is accumulating evidence that task demands and psychological states can affect perceived pain intensity. Different accounts have been proposed to explain this attenuation based either on how limited attentional resources are allocated to the pain stimulus or on how the threat value of the pain stimulus biases attention. However, the evidence for both proposals remains mixed. Here we introduce an incremental dual-task paradigm in which participants were asked to detect pain on their fingertip without any additional tasks during baseline phases or while concurrently detecting visual targets during task phases. The force applied to participants' fingertip in all phases increased incrementally until they detected moderate pain. In Experiment 1, we used coloured shapes and in Experiment 2 we used affective images as visual targets. We also manipulated the threat value of the pain stimulus in Experiment 2. For both experiments, we found that a concurrent task attenuated perceived pain intensity: mean force was significantly greater for the same moderate pain during task compared to baseline phases. Furthermore although task difficulty and affective content did not affect pain perception, the threat value of the pain stimulus moderated the magnitude of pain attenuation.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6226192?pdf=render
spellingShingle Quoc C Vuong
Angela Owen
Kehinde Akin-Akinyosoye
Vera Araujo-Soares
An incremental dual-task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty, affective content and threat value.
PLoS ONE
title An incremental dual-task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty, affective content and threat value.
title_full An incremental dual-task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty, affective content and threat value.
title_fullStr An incremental dual-task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty, affective content and threat value.
title_full_unstemmed An incremental dual-task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty, affective content and threat value.
title_short An incremental dual-task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty, affective content and threat value.
title_sort incremental dual task paradigm to investigate pain attenuation by task difficulty affective content and threat value
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6226192?pdf=render
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