The effect of pain on involuntary and voluntary capture of attention

BACKGROUND: There is converging evidence for the notion that pain affects a broad range of attentional domains. This study investigated the influence of pain on the involuntary capture of attention as indexed by the P3a component in the event-related potential derived from the electroencephalogram. METHODS: Participants performed in an auditory oddball task in a pain-free and a pain condition during which they submerged a hand in cold water. Novel, infrequent and unexpected auditory stimuli were presented randomly in a series of frequent standard and infrequent target tones. P3a and P3b amplitudes were observed to novel, unexpected and target-related stimuli, respectively. RESULTS: Both electrophysiological components were characterized by reduced amplitudes in the pain compared with the pain-free condition. Hit rate and reaction time to target stimuli did not differ between the two conditions presumably because the experimental task was not difficult enough to exceed attentional capacities under pain conditions. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that voluntary attention serving the maintenance and control of ongoing information processing (reflected by the P3b amplitude) is impaired by pain. In addition, the involuntary capture of attention and orientation to novel, unexpected information (measured by the P3a) is also impaired by pain. Thus, neurophysiological measures examined in this study support the theoretical positions proposing that pain can reduce attentional processing capacity. These findings have potentially important implications at the theoretical level for our understanding of the interplay of pain and cognition, and at the therapeutic level for the clinical treatment of individuals experiencing ongoing pain.

The effects of type of interval, sensory modality, base duration, and psychophysical task on the discrimination of brief time intervals

The present study was designed to investigate the influences of type of psychophysical task (two-alternative forced-choice [2AFC] and reminder tasks), type of interval (filled vs. empty), sensory modality (auditory vs. visual), and base duration (ranging from 100 through 1,000 ms) on performance on duration discrimination. All of these factors were systematically varied in an experiment comprising 192 participants. This approach allowed for obtaining information not only on the general (main) effect of each factor alone, but also on the functional interplay and mutual interactions of some or all of these factors combined. Temporal sensitivity was markedly higher for auditory than for visual intervals, as well as for the reminder relative to the 2AFC task. With regard to base duration, discrimination performance deteriorated with decreasing base durations for intervals below 400 ms, whereas longer intervals were not affected. No indication emerged that overall performance on duration discrimination was influenced by the type of interval, and only two significant interactions were apparent: Base Duration × Type of Interval and Base Duration × Sensory Modality. With filled intervals, the deteriorating effect of base duration was limited to very brief base durations, not exceeding 100 ms, whereas with empty intervals, temporal discriminability was also affected for the 200-ms base duration. Similarly, the performance decrement observed with visual relative to auditory intervals increased with decreasing base durations. These findings suggest that type of task, sensory modality, and base duration represent largely independent sources of variance for performance on duration discrimination that can be accounted for by distinct nontemporal mechanisms.

Die Skala zur Erfassung des Sportlehrerverhaltens SESV

Einleitung Sportliche Aktivität ist für die körperliche und geistige Entwicklung von Kindern und Jugendlichen von enormer Bedeutung (Kubesch, 2002). Im Rahmen des Schulsports übt u.a. das Sportlehrerverhalten (u.a. Feedback, soziale Unterstützung) einen Einfluss auf die Sporteinstellung und die sportliche Leistung der Heranwachsenden aus (Brand, 2006). Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, die Entwicklung eines Messverfahrens zur Erfassung verschiedener relevanter Aspekte des Sportlehrerverhaltens zu beschreiben. Das Messverfahren stellt eine Adaptation des Coaching Behavior Questionnaire dar (CBQ; Williams et al., 2003). Methode Der CBQ ist ein Fragebogen, der in seiner ursprünglichen, englischsprachigen Form von Sportlern ausgefüllt wird und sich aus 15 Items zusammensetzt, mittels derer Sportler die wahrgenommene Unterstützung durch ihren Trainer und dessen Emotionalität auf vierstufigen Likert-Skalen (von 1 – stimme überhaupt nicht zu bis 4 – stimme voll und ganz zu) beschreiben können. Der CBQ wurde für die vorliegende Fragestellung an den Schulkontext angepasst, so dass Schüler das Verhalten ihres Sportlehrers hinsichtlich dessen Unterstützung und dessen Emotionalität beschreiben, weshalb diese Adaptation im Folgenden als Skala zur Erfassung des Sportlehrerverhaltens (SESV) bezeichnet wird. Zunächst wurden die ursprünglichen 15 Items von zwei englischsprachigen Muttersprachlern unabhängig voneinander ins Deutsche übersetzt. In einem nächsten Schritt füllten N = 176 Gymnasiasten (M/Alter = 14.12, SD/Alter = 2.25; 101 weiblich) einen Fragebogen aus, der neben dem Sportlehrerverhalten die Sporteinstellung (Brand, 2006), die Wettkampfängstlichkeit (Brand, Ehrlenspiel & Graf, 2009) sowie die Sportnote der Schüler erfasste. Ergebnisse und Diskussion Die interne Konsistenz der SESV lag im zufriedenstellenden Bereich (α = .85). Die Ergebnisse einer exploratorischen Faktorenanalyse unterstützen die angenommene Faktorenstruktur der Skala. Ein eher negatives Sportlehrerverhalten ging mit einer eher negativen Sporteinstellung, höherer Wettkampfängstlichkeit sowie einer schlechteren Sportnote einher. Die SESV ermöglicht eine ökonomische Erfassung des Sportlehrerverhaltens.

The effect of nontemporal stimulus size on perceived duration as assessed by the method of reproduction

Perceived duration is assumed to be positively related to nontemporal stimulus magnitude. Most recently, the finding that larger stimuli are perceived to last longer has been challenged to represent a mere decisional bias induced by the use of comparative duration judgments. Therefore, in the present study, the method of temporal reproduction was applied as a psychophysical procedure to quantify perceived duration. Another major goal was to investigate the influence of attention on the effect of visual stimulus size on perceived duration. For this purpose, an additional dual-task paradigm was employed. Our results not only converged with previous findings in demonstrating a functional positive relationship between nontemporal stimulus size and perceived duration, but also showed that the effect of stimulus size on perceived duration was not confined to comparative duration judgments. Furthermore, the effect of stimulus size proved to be independent of attentional resources allocated to stimulus size; nontemporal visual stimulus information does not need to be processed intentionally to influence perceived duration. Finally, the effect of nontemporal stimulus size on perceived duration was effectively modulated by the duration of the target intervals, suggesting a hitherto largely unrecognized role of temporal context for the effect of nontemporal stimulus size to become evident.

Elucidating the internal structure of psychophysical timing performance in the sub-second and second range by utilizing confirmatory factor analysis

The most influential theoretical account in time psychophysics assumes the existence of a unitary internal clock based on neural counting. The distinct timing hypothesis, on the other hand, suggests an automatic timing mechanism for processing of durations in the sub-second range and a cognitively controlled timing mechanism for processing of durations in the range of seconds. Although several psychophysical approaches can be applied for identifying the internal structure of interval timing in the second and sub-second range, the existing data provide a puzzling picture of rather inconsistent results. In the present chapter, we introduce confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to further elucidate the internal structure of interval timing performance in the sub-second and second range. More specifically, we investigated whether CFA would rather support the notion of a unitary timing mechanism or of distinct timing mechanisms underlying interval timing in the sub-second and second range, respectively. The assumption of two distinct timing mechanisms which are completely independent of each other was not supported by our data. The model assuming a unitary timing mechanism underlying interval timing in both the sub-second and second range fitted the empirical data much better. Eventually, we also tested a third model assuming two distinct, but functionally related mechanisms. The correlation between the two latent variables representing the hypothesized timing mechanisms was rather high and comparison of fit indices indicated that the assumption of two associated timing mechanisms described the observed data better than only one latent variable. Models are discussed in the light of the existing psychophysical and neurophysiological data.