A psychophysical analysis was made of experiential factors that influence the affective but not the sensory-discriminative dimension of pain. Seven subjects made cross-modality matching responses to several dimensions of their experience. Before each stimulus, they matched line lengths to their experienced desire to avoid pain (significance) and to their perceived likelihood of avoiding it (expectation). After each stimulus, they matched line lengths to perceived sensation intensity (in some sessions) or to felt magnitudes of positive or negative feeling (in other sessions). Non-noxious (35, 42 degrees C) and noxious (45--51 degrees C) skin temperature stimuli were randomly interspersed during each experimental session. Changes in expectation were induced by preceding one-half of the noxious stimuli with a warning signal. The average responses of these subjects indicated that 45--51 degrees C noxious temperatures were felt as less unpleasant when preceded by a warning signal. In contrast, sensation magnitudes evoked by these same skin temperatures were unaffected by the warning signal. Thus, only the magnitudes of unpleasant responses are lowered by decreasing ones' expectation of avoiding pain. Analysis of individual responses revealed two distinct patterns of response changes following presentation of the warning signal. Four subjects retained the same general goal of avoiding pain and reduced their expectation of avoiding it. Their affective responses were less unpleasant during the warning signal. The remaining three subjects primarily altered their goals and not their expectations on signaled trials. Their affective responses were not modified by the signal. Subjects were instructed to arrive at their affective responses in two ways. In one session, they compared the outcome of each stmulation with what they wanted to happen (affect-result responses). In the other session, they simply focused on the pleasantness or unpleasantness of each sensation as it was experienced (affect-process responses). All subjects' affect-result responses were more positive (or less unpleasant) than affect-process responses. All of these results underscore the critical influence of expectations and the manner in which one evaluates sensations on affective responses to noxious stimulation.
A proposal for merging a science of human consciousness with neuroscience and psychology. The study of consciousness has advanced rapidly over the last two decades. And yet there is no clear path to creating models for a direct science of human experience or for integrating its insights with those of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. In Inner Experience and Neuroscience, Donald Price and James Barrell show how a science of human experience can be developed through a strategy that integrates experiential paradigms with methods from the natural sciences. They argue that the accuracy and results of both psychology and neuroscience would benefit from an experiential perspective and methods. Price and Barrell describe phenomenologically based methods for scientific research on human experience, as well as their philosophical underpinnings, and relate these to empirical results associated with such phenomena as pain and suffering, emotions, and volition. They argue that the methods of psychophysics are critical for integrating experiential and natural sciences, describe how qualitative and quantitative methods can be merged, and then apply this approach to the phenomena of pain, placebo responses, and background states of consciousness. In the course of their argument, they draw on empirical results that include qualitative studies, quantitative studies, and neuroimaging studies. Finally, they propose that the integration of experiential and natural science can extend efforts to understand such difficult issues as free will and complex negative emotions including jealousy and greed. Bradford Books imprint
Two experiments were performed to determine how desires and expectations interact to influence the intensities of emotional feelings. The first experiment required participants to respond to their imagined intensities of desire and expectation in two hypothetical situations, (1) anticipating different probabilities of receiving money (2) anticipating the possibility of different durations of continuous rain combined with different probabilities of rain occurring. Participants responded by producing line lengths to desire and feeling, a form of cross-modality matching. Feeling intensity but not desire intensity increased as a negatively accelerating power function of expectation for the positive approach goal of receiving money (F = KE°'^) and both desire and feeling were negatively accelerating power functions of the hypothetical amount of money presented (F = K^*; D = K$*). Feeling intensity but not desire intensity increased as a positively accelerating function of expectation for the negative avoidance goal of anticipating different amounts of rain (F= KE^'^) and both desire and feeling were negatively accelerating functions of amount of rain (F = KR°'^; D = KR°").The second experiment required participants to make visual analogue scale responses to desire, expectation, and emotional feeling intensities in ordinary life situations. Similar to Ejcperiment 1, feeling intensity but not desire intensity increased as a negatively accelerating function of expectation for positive approach goals (F = KEP'^) and as a positively accelerating function of expectation for negative avoidance goals (F= KE?"). Functional interrelationships found in both experiments were fit to the general equations F = KiD + K2DE"^ for positive approach goals and F = KiD + KuDE^" for negative avoidance goals. Both equations have the same general form and indicate that desire and expectation have a multiplicative interaction with respect to their influence on emotional feeling intensity. Both functionsThe authors wish to thank Mr. James E. Barrell for helpful discussions and comments on earlier versions of the manuscript, and Ms. Rebecca
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