Gaining insights on the influence of attention, anxiety, and anticipation on pain perception

Purpose: This article highlights the influence of attention and pain anticipation on pain attenuation. Pain-related trait anxiety was found to moderate the effect that attention strategies impose on pain perception. This article may contribute to clinical treatments quality, where pain attenuation effect is desired. Participants and methods: One hundred seven participants, comprising of 72 (67%) females and 35 (33%) males between the age of 17 and 48 (M=22.6, SD =4.36), were used in the analysis. The current study measured the effect of pain anticipation and attention on three aspects of pain perception: threshold, tolerance, and perceived pain intensity. Pain anticipation was manipulated by varying the amount of information given to participants about a future pain stimulus. Attention was manipulated through a sensory focusing task and a distraction task. Participants were randomized into 1) InfoControl group with distraction task trial (n=30), 2) InfoControl group with attention to pain trial (n=26), 3) InfoExtra group with distraction task trial (n=26), or 4) InfoExtra group with attention to pain trial (n=25). The pain stimulus was delivered in a form of heat. The moderating effects of pain-related trait anxiety on these variables were also investigated using Pain Anxiety Symptom Scale Short Form. Results: Two structural equation models revealed that anticipation is not a predictor of pain perception and neither did it interact with pain-related trait anxiety. However, attention strategies do significantly relate to pain perception. Furthermore, pain-related anxiety was a significant moderator of attention and pain attenuation. These findings imply that the effectiveness of attention strategies in attenuating pain is affected by individuals' pain-related trait anxiety. Conclusion: The results suggest the importance of appointing the appropriate attention strategy to different individuals with varying level of trait anxiety. Future explorations are necessary to develop a more specific understanding on the nature of information and distractions on pain perception

Failure to observe extinction cue effect in humans

A series of experiments were conducted to demonstrate an extinction cue effect in humans using a conditioned suppression task. All studies showed null effects despite various modifications. These null results stand in contrast to several demonstrations of an extinction cue effect in rodents. Conclusions regarding the feasibility of this effect in humans will be discussed as well as possible difference between human and rat information processing

Pavlovian Conditioning

[Extract] Pavlovian conditioning, also known as classical conditioning, is a reliable training procedure that results in an organism responding to a stimulus that previously did not evoke a response. It involves pairing an initially innocuous stimulus, such as a light or tone, with another stimulus that naturally provokes a response, such as food or an electrical shock. The previously neutral stimulus comes to control responding and typically evokes the same behavior that the biologically significant stimulus provoked, albeit weaker. Once a stimulus acquires behavioral control, it is known as a conditioned stimulus (CS) because it required conditioning, or training, to elicit the behavioral response that the unconditioned stimulus (US) naturally evokes. The innate reaction to the US is called the unconditioned response (UR), and the acquired response to the CS is called a conditioned response (CR)

Protection from extinction provided by a conditioned inhibitor

Three conditioned suppression experiments with rats as subjects investigated the influence of higher order associations in determining the response potential of a target stimulus. In these experiments, a Pavlovian conditioned inhibitor was compounded with the target cue during extinction treatment. In Experiment 1, strong suppression was observed to the target cue that was given extinction treatment in the presence of a conditioned inhibitor, relative to a target that was extinguished with an associatively neutral cue or was extinguished alone, suggestive of enhanced protection from extinction provided by a conditioned inhibitor. This effect was replicated in a sensory preconditioning preparation in Experiment 2; in Experiment 3, in a sensory preconditioning preparation, this protection effect was retroactively attenuated when the conditioned excitor used to train the conditioned inhibitor was extinguished following extinction of the target. This provides evidence that, at least in a sensory preconditioning preparation, stimuli that are only indirectly associated with the target cue can contribute to the response potential of that target

Contrasting predictions of extended comparator hypothesis and acquisition-focused models of learning concerning retrospective revaluation

Three conditioned suppression experiments with rats investigated contrasting predictions made by the extended comparator hypothesis and acquisition-focused models of learning, specifically, modified SOP and the revised Rescorla–Wagner model, concerning retrospective revaluation. Two target cues (X and Y) were partially reinforced using a stimulus relative validity design (i.e., AX–Outcome; BX–No outcome; CY–Outcome; DY–No outcome), and subsequently one of the companion cues for each target was extinguished in compound (BC–No outcome). In Experiment 1, which used spaced trials for relative validity training, greater suppression was observed to target cue Y for which the excitatory companion cue had been extinguished in relation to target cue X for which the nonexcitatory companion cue had been extinguished. Experiment 2 replicated these results in a sensory preconditioning preparation. Experiment 3 massed the trials during relative validity training, and the opposite pattern of data was observed. The results are consistent with the predictions of the extended comparator hypothesis. Furthermore, this set of experiments is unique in being able to differentiate between these models without invoking higher-order comparator processes

Behavioral techniques to reduce relapse after exposure therapy: applications of studies of experimental extinction

Pavlovian phenomena have long served as models for the etiology, treatment, and relapse from treatment of diverse disorders (e.g., phobias, addictions). Here we briefly review Pavlovian conditioning models of anxiety disorders, experimental extinction models of exposure therapy, and recovery from extinction models of relapse following exposure therapy. We then focus on how research on experimental extinction has led to the development of specific behavioral techniques to reduce recovery from extinction and hence relapse from exposure therapy. These techniques include conducting extinction treatment in multiple contexts, giving a massive amount of extinciton, increasing the time between extinction trials and between extinction sessions, administering extinction in the presence of a second excitor, and testing in the presence of a retrieval cue from extinction. It is concluded that these behavioral techniques, all of which were discovered in the experimental laboratory, are potent and important tools to be considered by psychotherapists trying to make their patients less susceptible to relapse

Associative foundation of causal learning in rats

Are humans unique in their ability to interpret exogenous events as causes? We addressed this question by observing the behavior of rats for indications of causal learning. Within an operant motor–sensory preconditioning paradigm, associative surgical techniques revealed that rats attempted to control an outcome (i.e., a potential effect) by manipulating a potential exogenous cause (i.e., an intervention). Rats were able to generate an innocuous auditory stimulus. This stimulus was then paired with an aversive stimulus. The animals subsequently avoided potential generation of the predictive cue, but not if the aversive stimulus was subsequently devalued or the predictive cue was extinguished (Exp. 1). In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that the aversive stimulus we used was in fact aversive, that it was subject to devaluation, that the cue–aversive stimulus pairings did make the cue a conditioned stimulus, and that the cue was subject to extinction. In Experiments 3 and 4, we established that the decrease in leverpressing observed in Experiment 1 was goal-directed instrumental behavior rather than purely a product of Pavlovian conditioning. To the extent that interventions suggest causal reasoning, it appears that causal reasoning can be based on associations between contiguous exogenous events. Thus, contiguity appears capable of establishing causal relationships between exogenous events. Our results challenge the widely held view that causal learning is uniquely human, and suggest that causal learning is explicable in an associative framework

DOI 10.3758/s13420-012-0075-5 Associative foundation of causal learning in rats

Abstract Are humans unique in their ability to interpret exogenous events as causes? We addressed this question by observing the behavior of rats for indications of causal learning. Within an operant motor–sensory preconditioning paradigm, associative surgical techniques revealed that rats attempted to control an outcome (i.e., a potential effect) by manipulating a potential exogenous cause (i.e., an intervention). Rats were able to generate an innocuous auditory stimulus. This stimulus was then paired with an aversive stimulus. The animals subsequently avoided potential generation of the predictive cue, but not if the aversive stimulus was subsequently devalued or the predictive cue was extinguished (Exp. 1). In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that the aversive stimulus we used was in fact aversive, that it was subject to devaluation, that the cue–aversive stimulus pairings did make the cue a conditioned stimulus, and that the cue was subject to extinction. In Experiments 3 and 4, we established that the decrease in leverpressing observed in Experiment 1 was goal-directed instrumental behavior rather than purely a product of Pavlovian conditioning. To the extent that interventions suggest causal reasoning, it appears that causal reasoning can be based on associations between contiguous exogenous events. Thus, contiguity appears capable of establishing causal relationships between exogenous events. Our results challenge the widely held view tha

Protection from latent inhibition provided by a conditioned inhibitor

Two conditioned suppression experiments with rats investigated the influence on latent inhibition of compounding a Pavlovian conditioned inhibitor with the target cue during preexposure treatment. Results were compared with those of subjects that received conventional latent inhibition training, no preexposure, or preexposure to the target cue in compound with a neutral stimulus. In Experiment 1, greater attenuation of the latent inhibition effect was observed in subjects that received target preexposure in compound with a Pavlovian conditioned inhibitor relative to subjects that received preexposure with a neutral stimulus or to the target alone. In Experiment 2, this protection from latent inhibition was attenuated if the excitor that was used to train the conditioned inhibitor was extinguished between preexposure and target training. The results are consistent with an account offered by the extended comparator hypothesis