Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.
Pain. 2012 Jun;153(6):1180-1186. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2012.01.025. Epub 2012 Mar 10.
Although dealing with pain is a vital goal to pursue, most individuals are also engaged in the pursuit of other goals. The aim of the present experiment was to investigate whether attentional bias to pain signals is inhibited when one is pursuing a concurrent salient but nonpain task goal. Attentional bias to pain signals was measured in pain-free volunteers (n=63) using a spatial cueing task with pain cues and neutral cues. The pursuit of a concurrent goal was manipulated by including additional trials in which a digit appeared at the middle of the screen. Half of the participants (goal group) were instructed to name these additional stimuli aloud. In order to increase the affective-motivational value of this non-pain-related goal, monetary reward and punishment were made contingent upon the performance of this task. Participants of the control group did not perform the additional task. As predicted, the results show attentional bias to pain signals in the control group, but not in the goal group. This indicates that attentional bias to signals of impending pain is inhibited when one is engaged in the pursuit of another salient but nonpain goal. The results of this study underscore a motivational view on attention to pain, in which the pursuit of multiple goals, including nonpain goals, is taken into account.
虽然处理疼痛是一个重要的追求目标，但大多数人也在追求其他目标。本实验的目的是研究当一个人同时追求一个显著但非疼痛的任务目标时，对疼痛信号的注意力偏见是否会受到抑制。在无痛志愿者（n=63）中，使用带有疼痛线索和中性线索的空间提示任务来测量对疼痛信号的注意力偏见。通过在屏幕中间出现数字的额外试验来操纵同时追求目标的任务。一半的参与者（目标组）被指示大声说出这些额外的刺激。为了增加这个与疼痛无关的目标的情感动机价值，对完成这项任务的结果进行了金钱奖励和惩罚。对照组的参与者不执行额外的任务。正如预测的那样，结果表明，在对照组中存在对疼痛信号的注意力偏见，但在目标组中则没有。这表明，当一个人专注于另一个显著但非疼痛的目标时，对即将到来的疼痛信号的注意力偏见会受到抑制。这项研究的结果强调了一种对疼痛注意力的动机观点，其中考虑了对多个目标的追求，包括非疼痛目标。
