Vicarious pain while observing another in pain: an experimental approach.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed at developing an experimental paradigm to assess vicarious pain experiences. We further explored the putative moderating role of observer's characteristics such as hypervigilance for pain and dispositional empathy. METHODS: Two experiments are reported using a similar procedure. Undergraduate students were selected based upon whether they reported vicarious pain in daily life, and categorized into a pain responder group or a comparison group. Participants were presented a series of videos showing hands being pricked whilst receiving occasionally pricking (electrocutaneous) stimuli themselves. In congruent trials, pricking and visual stimuli were applied to the same spatial location. In incongruent trials, pricking and visual stimuli were in the opposite spatial location. Participants were required to report on which location they felt a pricking sensation. Of primary interest was the effect of viewing another in pain upon vicarious pain errors, i.e., the number of trials in which an illusionary sensation was reported. Furthermore, we explored the effect of individual differences in hypervigilance to pain, dispositional empathy and the rubber hand illusion (RHI) upon vicarious pain errors. RESULTS: RESULTS of both experiments indicated that the number of vicarious pain errors was overall low. In line with expectations, the number of vicarious pain errors was higher in the pain responder group than in the comparison group. Self-reported hypervigilance for pain lowered the probability of reporting vicarious pain errors in the pain responder group, but dispositional empathy and the RHI did not. CONCLUSION: Our paradigm allows measuring vicarious pain experiences in students. However, the prevalence of vicarious experiences of pain is low, and only a small percentage of participants display the phenomenon. It remains however unknown which variables affect its occurrence.

Keeping pain out of your mind: the role of attentional set in pain.

BACKGROUND: The involuntary capture of attention by pain may, to some extent, be controlled by psychological variables. In this paper, we investigated the effect of attentional set (i.e., the collection of task-related features that a person is monitoring in order to successfully pursue a goal) on pain. METHODS: Two experiments are reported in which the task relevance of the modality and spatial location of a target stimulus was manipulated. In both experiments, somatosensory and auditory stimuli were presented on each trial. In experiment 1, 29 participants were cued on each trial to localize either a somatosensory or an auditory target. In experiment 2, 37 participants were cued on each trial to identify either a somatosensory or an auditory target at a particular location. RESULTS: In experiment 1, self-reported pain intensity and unpleasantness were reduced when participants had to localize the auditory target. The location of the painful stimulus relative to the location of the auditory target did not affect pain. In experiment 2, again, pain intensity and unpleasantness ratings were reduced when participants identified the auditory target. Now, the location of the painful stimulus relative to the location of the auditory target moderated the effect. Pain intensity was less when the painful stimulus was at a different location than the auditory target. CONCLUSIONS: Results are discussed in terms of the attentional set hypothesis, and we argue that the effectiveness of distraction tasks depends on the degree to which the task-relevant features of the distraction task are distinct from pain-related features.

Pain catastrophizing influences the use and the effectiveness of distraction in schoolchildren.

Distraction is an intuitive way of coping with pain and is often used in children's pain treatment programs. However, empirical evidence concerning the effectiveness of distraction is equivocal. One potential explanation might be that distraction does not work for everyone in every situation. In the current series of studies, we examined the role of pain catastrophizing as an influencing factor of distraction effectiveness. In the first study, we investigated the use of pain coping strategies (including distraction) in schoolchildren (N = 828, aged 8-18 years) by means of a questionnaire. Results indicated that children with higher levels of pain catastrophizing reported using less distraction strategies in daily life than children with lower levels of pain catastrophizing. In the second study, a subsample (N = 81, aged 9-18 years) performed a painful cold pressor task (CPT) (12 °C). Participants were randomly assigned to a distraction group, in which an attention-demanding tone-detection task was performed during the CPT, or a control group, in which no distraction task was performed. Results showed that participants in the distraction group were engaged in the distraction task, and reported to have paid less attention to pain than participants in the control group. However, distraction was ineffective in reducing cold pressor pain, and even intensified the pain experience in high catastrophizing children. Caution may be warranted in using distraction as a 'one size fits all' method, especially in high catastrophizing children.