Abstract
The literature regarding pain-related attentional biases is currently marked by considerable
inconsistency. The primary aim of the present study was to examine whether 2 stimulus-related
factors may be important to the detection of pain-related attentional biases: 1) the
personal relevance of stimuli; and 2) their ecological validity. To do this, the present
research compared the ability of a word-based dot-probe task (ie, lower ecological
validity) and picture-based dot-probe task (ie, higher ecological validity) to detect
attentional biases using generally selected (ie, lower personal relevance) and idiosyncratically
selected stimuli (ie, higher personal relevance). To do this, the present study used
a large sample of chronic pain patients and matched pain-free individuals. Attentional
biases were found among both chronic pain patients and pain-free individuals for idiosyncratically
selected pictorial stimuli (ie, highest ecological validity and personal relevance)
but not for generally selected pictorial stimuli or for pain-related word stimuli,
irrespective of whether they were idiosyncratically or generally selected. These biases
were found to stem from vigilance for pain-related stimuli. Overall, the findings
of the present study suggest that similar pain-related attentional biases can be found
among both pain-free individuals and chronic pain patients and that stimulus-related
factors may be important to the detection of those biases.
Perspective
To date, research examining pain-related attentional biases has yielded inconsistent
results. The present study sought to examine 2 stimulus-related factors often identified
for their potential to influence the consistency of findings. The findings of this
study highlight the importance of considering stimulus-related factors when designing
and interpreting pain-related dot-probe research.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 11, 2011
Accepted:
November 27,
2010
Received in revised form:
November 11,
2010
Received:
May 8,
2010
Footnotes
Funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grant to M.K.N. and L.S. L.S. is also supported by an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship.
The authors have no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.