Different Stages in Attentional Processing of Facial Expressions of Pain: A Dot-Probe Task Modification

Baum, Corinna; Schneider, Raphaela; Keogh, Edmund; Lautenbacher, Stefan

doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2012.11.001

Cited by 45 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Interestingly, temporal dynamics have been shown to play an important role in such biases: in healthy controls, a fast attentional bias toward threat, found at 100 ms intervals between cues and probe, is followed by a slower attentional disengagement from angry faces at 500 ms (3). Very similar results have been found for faces expressing pain (4). The causal role of attentional biases in problem behavior has been indicated by cognitive bias modification studies, which show that manipulating an attentional bias causes improvements in, e.g., anxiety (5).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Medial Parietal Cortex Activation Related to Attention Control Involving Alcohol Cues

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Automatic attentional engagement toward and disengagement from alcohol cues play a role in alcohol use and dependence. In the current study, social drinkers performed a spatial cueing task designed to evoke conflict between such automatic processes and task instructions, a potentially important task feature from the perspective of recent dual-process models of addiction. Subjects received instructions either to direct their attention toward pictures of alcoholic beverages, and away from non-alcohol beverages; or to direct their attention toward pictures of non-alcoholic beverages, and away from alcohol beverages. Instructions were varied per block. Activation in medial parietal cortex was found during “approach alcohol” versus “avoid-alcohol” blocks. This region is associated with the, possibly automatic, shifting of attention between stimulus features. Subjects thus appeared to shift attention away from certain features of alcoholic cues when attention had to be directed toward their location. Further, activation in voxels located close to this region was negatively correlated with riskier drinking behavior. A tentative interpretation of the results is that risky drinking may be associated with a reduced automatic tendency to shift attention away from potentially distracting task-irrelevant alcohol cues. Future study is needed to test this interpretation, and to further determine the role of medial posterior regions in automatic alcohol-related attentional processes in general.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Medial Parietal Cortex Activation Related to Attention Control Involving Alcohol Cues

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Potentially, pictorial pain descriptors are more ecologically valid stimuli than verbal ones and might therefore be more suitable for detecting hypervigilance. In a previous study carried out by our group, Baum et al14 demonstrated, in a modified dot-probe task, higher early attentional engagement with pain faces and stronger later attentional avoidance of the same faces in individuals with high fear of pain (vigilance-avoidance pattern of attention).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…However, there are alternative arguments which speak in favor of the idea that facial expressions of pain are salient enough to compete well with other emotional stimuli in a primary task paradigm. Studies using the dot-probe task have found strong attentional biases towards pain utilizing pain-related and other faces in chronic pain-patients,12 as well as enhanced early engagement and later disengagement towards pain stimuli in subjects with high fear of pain levels 14. Also, research based on related paradigms suggests that increased attentional engagement occurs for threatening facial expressions,39,40 including ERP modulation 25,26,32,41,42.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Vigilance for pain-related faces in a primary task paradigm: an ERP study

Lautenbacher¹,

Dittmar²,

Baum³

et al. 2013

JPR

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundPain-related stimuli are supposed to be automatically prioritized over other stimuli. This prioritization has often been tested using primary task paradigms in which pain information is irrelevant for completing the explicitly posed task. Task-irrelevant stimuli are only processed if they are very salient, and pain-related stimuli are assumed to be salient enough.ObjectiveWe wanted to further investigate this assumption by assessing event-related brain potentials (ERPs) – a very sensitive method for studying attention and reaction times in response to pictures of people in pain and other emotional faces – using a primary task paradigm. In addition, we assumed that individuals describing themselves as vigilant to pain are especially responsive to pain cues.MethodsOne hundred pain-free subjects were tested in a primary task paradigm using pictures of facial expressions of pain, anger, happiness, and neutral mood. ERPs were assessed at midline electrodes. Vigilance to pain was assessed by the pain vigilance and awareness questionnaire.ResultsIn contrast to previous studies (which have used pain words), effects of facial expressions of pain and other emotions on the ERPs and reaction times were surprisingly weak throughout and did not give evidence for a distinct processing of pain-related stimuli. However, hypervigilant subjects appeared to be strongly and cognitively absorbed by all emotional stimuli.ConclusionAccordingly, it appears that pain-related stimuli are not always of outstanding salience, but that certain characteristics (eg, type of material, emotional richness) have to be present, for pain-related stimuli to be prioritized over stimuli of other emotional content. Hypervigilance to pain may generally predispose individuals to process emotional stimuli in greater depth.

show abstract

“…Recent dot-probe data from our lab demonstrate a VA pattern for pain faces in pain-fearful individuals (Baum et al, 2013b). While a flexible VA pattern for painassociated stimuli might be adaptive, a pronounced VA might lead to worse pain outcomes as pain-relevant stimuli are detected very quickly but avoided shortly after, thus preventing successful coping.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%