An investigation of the effect of experimental pain on logical reasoning

Pain disrupts attention in order to prioritise avoidance of harm and promote analgesic behaviour. This could in turn have negative effects on higher-level cognitions which rely on attention. In the current paper we examined the effect of thermal pain induction on three measures of reasoning: the Cognitive Reflection Test, Belief Bias Syllogisms task, and Conditional Inference task. In Experiment 1, the thermal pain was set at each participant’s pain threshold. In Experiment 2, it was set to a minimum of 44°C or 7/10 on a VAS scale (whichever was higher). In Experiment 3, performance was compared in no pain, low intensity pain, and high intensity pain conditions. We predicted that the experience of pain would reduce correct responding on the reasoning tasks. However, this was not supported in any of the three studies. We discuss possible interpretations of our failure to reject the null hypothesis and the importance of publishing null results

Predicting the consequences of physical activity: an investigation into the relationship between anxiety sensitivity, interoceptive accuracy and action

The ability to predict the consequences of our actions is imperative for the everyday success of our interactions. From negotiating an uneven surface, to mounting an immune response, we continually infer the limits of our body. The current investigation considered the impact that the inferred consequences of action has on the placement of limits. We hypothesised that the performance of individuals in a novel, sprint task would reflect both their ability to accurately detect changes in bodily arousal (Interoceptive Accuracy) and the inferred consequences associated with heightened arousal signals (Anxiety Sensitivity). We found that individuals who demonstrated accuracy associated with physiological arousal changes, and who showed a heightened fear of the consequences of arousal symptoms, modified their actions by decreasing their power output (mean Watts•kg-1) in a sprint task (∆R2= 0.19; F(1,34)=19.87);

A Cross-Media Presence Questionnaire: The ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory

The presence research community would benefit from a reliable and valid cross-media presence measure that allows results from different laboratories to be compared and a more comprehensive knowledge base to be developed. The ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory (ITC-SOPI) is a new state questionnaire measure whose development has been informed by previous research on the determinants of presence and current self-report measures. It focuses on users' experiences of media, with no reference to objective system parameters. More than 600 people completed the ITC-SOPI following an experience with one of a range of noninteractive and interactive media. Exploratory analysis (principal axis factoring) revealed four factors: Sense of Physical Space, Engagement, Ecological Validity, and Negative Effects. Relations between the factors and the consistency of the factor structure with others reported in the literature are discussed. Preliminary analyses described here demonstrate that the ITC-SOPI is reliable and valid, but more rigorous testing of its psychometric properties and applicability to interactive virtual environments is required. Subject to satisfactory confirmatory analyses, the ITC-SOPI will offer researchers using a range of media systems a tool with which to measure four facets of a media experience that are putatively related to presence