Painful decisions: How classifying sensations can change the experience of pain

Abstract

Categorization effects in pain perception are demonstrated. Classifying and labelling painful events can modulate early perceptual processes, lead to under- or overestimation of pain symptoms and affect decision-making behaviour related to pain.

Categorical interoception and the role of threat

“…In accordance with our hypothesis, we found that instigating categorical predictions resulted in smaller perceived differences within, compared to between categories in fear, intensity, and unpleasantness, suggesting that categorical predictions had a profound impact on perceived interoceptive sensations. These findings are consistent with a large body of (exteroceptive) categorization research (e.g., Corneille et al, 2002;Goldstone, 1995;Tajfel and Wilkes, 1963) that found that category membership significantly changes stimulus perception, and extend those found in earlier interoceptive categorization studies, in which category labels were shown on screen immediately before ratings were made (Petersen et al, 2014;van der Meulen et al, 2017), to persistent interoceptive categorization effects even when category labels are no longer shown (i.e., have to be retrieved from memory). Our effects may have been enhanced by increased attention focus on between-category (compared to within-category) differences in order to perform better on the categorization task, but they nevertheless suggest 1) category learning, 2) the significance of the (arbitrary) category border, and 3) the impact of categories on perceived interoceptive sensations.…”