van Laarhoven A I M, van Damme S, Lavrijsen A P M, van Ryckeghem D M, Crombez G, Evers A W M
Unit Health, Medical and Neuropsychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Psychol Res. 2018 Sep;82(5):876-888. doi: 10.1007/s00426-017-0878-2. Epub 2017 Jun 24.
Itch is a prevalent somatosensory symptom that can be highly disabling, because it is likely to draw attention and, as a result, may interfere with the performance of daily activities. Yet, research experimentally investigating attention to itch is lacking. In this study we aimed to investigate attentional processing of itch using multiple behavioral attention tasks. Forty-one healthy participants performed (1) a modified Stroop task with itch-related words, (2) a dot-probe task with itch-related pictures, and (3) a recently developed somatosensory attention task in which the effect of experimentally induced itch on the localization of visual targets was examined. Additionally, a number of self-report questionnaires related to somatosensory attentional processing were administered. Results indicated that participants' attention was biased toward itch-related words and pictures assessed by means of the dot-probe and modified Stroop task, respectively. For the somatosensory attention task, results showed that itch did not significantly influence the allocation of attention. However, when taking into account the time course of attention during the itch stimulus, data suggested that participants tended to disengage attention away during the itch stimulus. This is the first study that indicates an attentional bias for itch, using methods that have previously been validated for other sensations such as pain. In addition, the newly developed somatosensory attention task may reflect the time course of attention toward a tonic itch stimulus.
瘙痒是一种常见的躯体感觉症状，可能会严重影响功能，因为它很可能会引起注意，进而可能干扰日常活动的进行。然而，目前缺乏对瘙痒注意力的实验性研究。在本研究中，我们旨在使用多种行为注意力任务来研究对瘙痒的注意力加工。41名健康参与者进行了以下实验：(1) 一项使用与瘙痒相关词汇的改良Stroop任务；(2) 一项使用与瘙痒相关图片的点探测任务；(3) 一项最近开发的躯体感觉注意力任务，该任务考察了实验性诱发的瘙痒对视觉目标定位的影响。此外，还发放了一些与躯体感觉注意力加工相关的自我报告问卷。结果表明，参与者的注意力分别通过点探测任务和改良Stroop任务，偏向于与瘙痒相关的词汇和图片。对于躯体感觉注意力任务，结果显示瘙痒并没有显著影响注意力的分配。然而，当考虑瘙痒刺激期间注意力的时间进程时，数据表明参与者在瘙痒刺激期间倾向于转移注意力。这是第一项使用先前已针对疼痛等其他感觉进行验证的方法，表明对瘙痒存在注意力偏向的研究。此外，新开发的躯体感觉注意力任务可能反映了对持续性瘙痒刺激的注意力时间进程。
