Interrupted by pain: An anatomy of pain-contingent activity interruptions

Gatzounis, Rena; Schrooten, Martien; Crombez, Geert

doi:10.1016/j.pain.2014.03.017

Cited by 23 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…the ability to maintain one's position in a sequential task [20], but not other processes required for task performance, such as recognition of the (perceptual) characteristics of the stimulus. This finding is in line with the computer-human interaction literature in which the same experimental paradigm was used [1,3,20], and with a theoretical model predicting that activity interruptions by pain have negative consequences for performance [18].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Guided by interruption models from other research fields [2,5,7,35], we previously proposed a stage model describing how activity interruptions by pain could impair subsequent activity resumption [18]. We also showed that activities are performed less accurately and more slowly after being interrupted by pain [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…A natural response to pain is to suspend ongoing activities in order to escape from or avoid damage [14], usually with the intention to resume the interrupted activities later. Activity interruptions by pain may facilitate pain management, but may also hold the risk of impairing subsequent performance of the interrupted activity [18]. Unfortunately, much remains unknown about the latter.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, activity interruptions by pain might be more disruptive when pain is experienced as threatening, as happens in high pain catastrophizers. High threat value enhances the attentional demands of pain [12,14], thus potentially impairing information encoding and the subsequent resumption of the interrupted activity [9,14,18]. High pain catastrophizers have been shown to spend less time on an open-ended activity that is interrupted by pain [31], indicating that pain catastrophizing indeed moderates interruption effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Activity interruptions by pain impair activity resumption, but not more than activity interruptions by other stimuli: an experimental investigation

Gatzounis

Schrooten

Crombez

2017

Pain

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Abstract:Interrupting ongoing activities whilst intending to resume them later is a natural response to pain. Whereas this response facilitates pain management, at the same time it may also disrupt task performance. Previous research has shown that activity interruptions by pain impair subsequent resumption of the activity, but not more than pain-irrelevant interruptions. Ongoing task complexity and pain threat value might influence interruption effects. In this experiment, we adjusted a paradigm from outside the field of pain to investigate how activity interruptions by pain affect task performance. Healthy participants (n=69) were required to answer a series of questions, in a specific sequence, about presented letter-digit combinations. This ongoing task was occasionally interrupted by painful electrocutaneous or non-painful vibrotactile stimulation (between-subjects) followed by a typing task. Upon interruption completion, participants were required to resume the ongoing task at the next step of the question sequence.Results indicate impaired sequence accuracy (less frequent resumption at the correct step of the sequence) but preserved non-sequence accuracy (similarly frequent correct responses to question content) immediately after an interruption. Effects were not larger for interruptions by pain, compared to non-pain. Further, participants in the two conditions reported similar task experience, namely task motivation, perceived difficulty, and confidence to resume the interrupted task. Pain catastrophizing did not influence the results. As in previous studies, activity interruptions by pain were shown to impair the resumption of a task that requires keeping to a step sequence, but not more than interruptions by non-painful stimuli. Potential explanations are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Activity interruptions by pain impair activity resumption, but not more than activity interruptions by other stimuli: an experimental investigation

Gatzounis

Schrooten

Crombez

2017

Pain

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“…Pain is a hardwired signal of bodily harm, and is designed to capture attention, and to interrupt ongoing activities (Eccleston & Crombez, 1999;Gatzounis, Schrooten, Crombez, & Vlaeyen, 2014. There is a wealth of experimental studies that demonstrate this automatic function of pain (Moore, Keogh, & Eccleston, 2012) (Berryman et al, 2013). In an example of the primary task paradigm, participants perform as quickly as possible an auditory discrimination task in the presence or absence of painful stimuli (Crombez, Eccleston, Baeyens, & Eelen, 1996.…”

Section: The Interruptive Function Of Painmentioning

confidence: 99%

The experimental analysis of the interruptive, interfering, and identity-distorting effects of chronic pain

Vlaeyen

Morley

Crombez

2016

Behaviour Research and Therapy

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Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience urging the individual to take action to restore the integrity of the body. The transition from a common episode of acute pain to a state of intermittent or chronic pain has been a constant preoccupation of researchers and clinicians alike. In this review, we approach chronic pain from a modern learning perspective that incorporates cognitive, affective, behavioral and motivational aspects. We view pain as a biologically hard-wired signal of bodily harm that competes with other demands in the person's environment. The basic tenet is that pain urges people to interrupt ongoing activity, elicits protective responses that paradoxically increase interference with daily activities, and compromises the sense of self. Here we briefly summarize existing evidence showing how pain captures attention, and how attention for pain can be controlled.We also consider pain as a strong motivator for learning, and review the recent evidence on the acquisition and generalization of pain-related fear and avoidance behavior, which are likely to interfere with daily life activities. We highlight the paradoxical effects of pain avoidance behavior, and review treatment effects of exposure in vivo. A generally neglected area of research is the detrimental consequences of repeated interference by pain with daily activities on one's sense of "self". We end this review with a plea for the implementation of single-case experimental designs as a means to help customize and develop novel cognitive-behavioral treatments for individuals for chronic pain aimed at reducing the suffering of this large group of individuals.3

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The subsequent interruptive effects of pain on attention

Gong

Liu

et al. 2022

European Journal of Pain

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Background: Pain is known to interrupt attentional performance selectively. In a previous study, we showed that the interruptive effect of thermal pain on attention could persist up to 1500 ms after painful stimulus offset, but whether the pain modality affects this subsequent interruptive effect remains unclear. Methods:The present study was conducted to determine the time course of the interruptive effect of electrically induced pain on orienting and executive attention using various intervals between electric stimulation and attentional tasks (0, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 1250 and 1500 ms) and three study groups (pain, non-pain and control). We performed two separate experiments in which participants performed a spatial cue task (Experiment 1) and the Stroop task (Experiment 2).Participants in the pain and non-pain groups received brief electric somatosensory stimulation, and those in the control group received no physical stimulus.We compared the performance of the three groups under the interstimulus interval (ISI) conditions. Results:The impairment of orienting attention prevailed under the first six ISI conditions in the pain and non-pain groups (F 2, 63 = 5.72, p < 0.01); executive attention was not affected (F 1,66 = 1.64, p = 0.20), confirming the persistence of the interruptive effect after stimulus offset.Conclusions: This study demonstrated the interruptive effect of somatic stimulation on subsequent orienting attention performance, with no effect on executive attention. These findings suggest that pain has differential effects on the components of attention, depending on its modality and salience.Significance: This study confirmed that pain had a selective subsequent interruptive effect on attention and found that the time course of the interruption depended on the modality of pain and the component of attention.

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Interrupted by pain: An anatomy of pain-contingent activity interruptions

Cited by 23 publications

References 38 publications

Activity interruptions by pain impair activity resumption, but not more than activity interruptions by other stimuli: an experimental investigation

Activity interruptions by pain impair activity resumption, but not more than activity interruptions by other stimuli: an experimental investigation

The experimental analysis of the interruptive, interfering, and identity-distorting effects of chronic pain

The subsequent interruptive effects of pain on attention

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