Abstract
The way in which individuals attend to pain-related stimuli is thought to affect their
pain experience. Early and late stages of processing, with shifts from attentional
engagement to disengagement (avoidance), have been identified, but rarely investigated
in the same protocol. Therefore, the present study aimed to consider 2 time frames
that might be indicative of attentional engagement and disengagement. One hundred
pain-free individuals performed a modified dot-probe task with pictorial stimuli displaying
affective facial expressions (ie, pain, anger, joy, neutral face), presented either
for 100 ms or for 500 ms. Because fear of pain has been found to moderate attentional
processing of pain stimuli, the Fear of Pain Questionnaire (FPQ III) was also administered.
Results indicated both early attentional engagement and later disengagement (avoidance)
for negative facial expressions (anger, pain). This pattern was most prominent for
pain faces and among those participants high in pain-related fear. Taken together,
these findings provide evidence that the dot-probe task is suitable to investigate
different stages of attentional processing for pain-related stimuli. In accordance
with the vigilance-avoidance hypothesis, pain-related stimuli seem to attract attention
quickly, but attentional avoidance may occur shortly after.
Perspective
We focused on different stages of attentional processing of pain faces in pain-free
individuals. Results highlight the importance of distinguishing between early (engagement)
and later (disengagement) components of attention, as well as considering the role
that fear of pain has in understanding the nature of these effects.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 07, 2013
Accepted:
November 8,
2012
Received in revised form:
August 28,
2012
Received:
May 21,
2012
Footnotes
Supported by a research grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG LA 685/8-1).
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
