McGowan Naomi, Sharpe L, Refshauge K, Nicholas M K
Clinical Psychology Unit, School of Psychology, University of Sydney, A17, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Pain. 2009 Mar;142(1-2):101-7. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2008.12.009. Epub 2009 Feb 6.
This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of implicit attention re-training (AR) on pain ratings, threshold and tolerance during the cold-pressor task and to determine whether the effectiveness of AR was affected by threat expectancy. One hundred and four undergraduate psychology students were randomly assigned to receive either threat-alleviating or threat-inducing information about the task. Participants were then re-randomized to receive an AR that either trained them to implicitly attend to neutral and ignore pain-related stimuli (neutral training) or to attend towards pain-related stimuli (pain training). Hence, the present study had a 2 (threat expectancy: high vs low) x 2 (AR: pain vs neutral) design. Manipulation checks confirmed that the threat manipulation was effective in increasing threat expectancy and the training paradigm shifted attentional biases in predicted directions. Results showed that, relative to neutral re-training, those in the pain re-training group reported higher levels of pain 30s into the cold pressor task and registered pain more quickly. There was no difference in tolerance between the groups, nor pain at tolerance. This was the same pattern of results found for the threat induction. For initial pain ratings, there was an interaction that closely approached significance (p=0.053). These results show that AR affects individual's perceptions of and their responses to pain during an experimental task in a similar way to increasing the threat expectancy of the task. Future research should trial AR in real-life settings to determine whether these results can be generalized.
本研究旨在探讨内隐注意力再训练（AR）对冷加压任务期间疼痛评分、阈值和耐受性的影响，并确定AR的有效性是否受威胁预期的影响。104名本科心理学专业学生被随机分配，以接收关于该任务的减轻威胁或引发威胁的信息。然后，参与者再次被随机分组，接受一种AR训练，该训练要么让他们内隐地关注中性刺激并忽略与疼痛相关的刺激（中性训练），要么让他们关注与疼痛相关的刺激（疼痛训练）。因此，本研究采用2（威胁预期：高 vs 低）×2（AR：疼痛 vs 中性）设计。操纵性检查证实，威胁操纵有效地提高了威胁预期，且训练范式使注意力偏差朝着预测的方向转变。结果显示，与中性再训练相比，疼痛再训练组的参与者在冷加压任务进行30秒时报告的疼痛程度更高，且更快感觉到疼痛。两组之间在耐受性方面没有差异，达到耐受时的疼痛程度也没有差异。这与威胁诱导组的结果模式相同。对于初始疼痛评分，存在一个接近显著水平的交互作用（p = 0.053）。这些结果表明，AR在实验任务中影响个体对疼痛的感知及其对疼痛的反应，其方式类似于增加任务的威胁预期。未来的研究应在现实生活场景中试验AR，以确定这些结果是否具有普遍性。
