Department of Clinical Psychology; School of Psychology, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.
School of Education Sciences, Sports and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2024 Oct;250:104555. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104555. Epub 2024 Oct 29.
This meta-analysis reviewed the existing literature on attentional biases towards emotional stimuli measured with eye-tracking methodologies in individuals with chronic pain.
Eighteen relevant studies (n = 1331 participants) were identified through three electronic databases: PubMed, PsycInfo, and Scopus. A multilevel random-effects meta-analysis was conducted by using the standardized mean difference between gaze variables for emotional and neutral stimuli with Hedge's correction as the effect size (ES).
Between-group analyses revealed that healthy individuals make longer first fixation towards neutral stimuli compared to chronic pain patients. Within-group analyses showed that, compared to the healthy control group, the chronic pain group had more first fixations towards pain-related stimuli than to neutral ones and had shorter fixation duration towards anger-related stimuli than to neutral stimuli. A moderation effect of paradigm and type of stimuli was also found.
This is the first meta-analysis exploring attentional biases not only towards pain-related stimuli, but also towards other emotional information. Our findings revealed that chronic pain individuals tend to focus their attention firstly on pain-related information in comparison to healthy individuals. Furthermore, chronic pain individuals maintain their attention on anger-related stimuli less than on neutral ones.
本荟萃分析回顾了使用眼动追踪方法测量慢性疼痛个体对情绪刺激的注意偏差的现有文献。
通过三个电子数据库（PubMed、PsycInfo 和 Scopus）确定了 18 项相关研究（n=1331 名参与者）。采用标准化均数差（Hedge's 校正）作为效应量（ES），对情绪刺激和中性刺激的注视变量进行多水平随机效应荟萃分析。
组间分析表明，与慢性疼痛患者相比，健康个体对中性刺激的首次注视时间更长。组内分析表明，与健康对照组相比，慢性疼痛组对疼痛相关刺激的首次注视次数多于中性刺激，对愤怒相关刺激的注视持续时间短于中性刺激。还发现了范式和刺激类型的调节作用。
这是首次探索不仅对疼痛相关刺激，而且对其他情绪信息的注意偏差的荟萃分析。我们的研究结果表明，与健康个体相比，慢性疼痛个体更倾向于首先关注疼痛相关信息。此外，慢性疼痛个体对愤怒相关刺激的注意力持续时间比中性刺激短。
