Maltzman S
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455.
Pavlov J Biol Sci. 1988 Apr-Jun;23(2):67-74.
Recent experimental studies in pain control have questioned the value of pleasant affect in strategies employing distraction. It appears that pleasant affect may have been systematically confounded with task complexity or novelty in past research that found pleasant imagery or slides effective in increasing pain tolerance with the cold pressor test. The present study was a follow-up to a study conducted by this author (Greenstein, 1984) in which unpleasant slides had significantly increased pain tolerance above pleasant slide level. In the present study, 69 college students (35 females, 34 males) rated either the pleasant or unpleasant slides used in the original study on their perceived pleasantness, complexity, and uniqueness (novelty). Results indicated that the unpleasant slides were rated significantly more complex (P less than 0.001) and unique (P less than 0.001) than the pleasant slides. Additionally, as in the earlier study, ratings of the unpleasant slides on pleasantness deviated significantly farther from neutrality than did ratings of the pleasant slides (t = 5.04, P less than 0.001). Thus the unpleasant slides were also perceived as being more significant (i.e., pertinent) than were the pleasant slides. The results indicate that affect was confounded with other stimulus characteristics in the Greenstein (1984) pain control study and probably in a significant number of other studies as well. Researchers are cautioned to control for the stimulus characteristics of visual distraction strategies used in pain control studies. The assumption that pleasantness, per se, contributes to strategy effectiveness is no longer tenable; future research must demonstrate an independent effect.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
近期有关疼痛控制的实验研究对在采用分散注意力策略中愉快情绪的价值提出了质疑。在过去的研究中，愉快情绪似乎一直与任务复杂性或新奇性存在系统性混淆，这些研究发现愉快的意象或幻灯片在冷加压试验中能有效提高疼痛耐受性。本研究是作者（格林斯坦，1984年）之前一项研究的后续，在该研究中，不愉快的幻灯片显著提高了疼痛耐受性，超过了愉快幻灯片的水平。在本研究中，69名大学生（35名女性，34名男性）对原始研究中使用的愉快或不愉快幻灯片的愉悦感、复杂性和独特性（新奇性）进行了评分。结果表明，不愉快的幻灯片在复杂性（P小于0.001）和独特性（P小于0.001）方面的评分显著高于愉快的幻灯片。此外，与早期研究一样，不愉快幻灯片在愉悦感方面的评分比愉快幻灯片的评分偏离中性的程度要大得多（t = 5.04，P小于0.001）。因此，不愉快的幻灯片也被认为比愉快的幻灯片更具显著性（即相关性）。结果表明，在格林斯坦（1984年）的疼痛控制研究中，情绪与其他刺激特征存在混淆，可能在其他大量研究中也是如此。告诫研究人员在疼痛控制研究中要控制视觉分散注意力策略的刺激特征。认为愉悦感本身有助于策略有效性的假设不再成立；未来的研究必须证明其独立作用。（摘要截选至250词）
