Influence of acute pain on valence rating of words

Abstract

Numerous studies showed the effect of negative affective and pain-related semantic primes enhancing the perceived intensity of successive painful stimuli. It remains unclear whether and how painful primes are able to influence semantic stimuli in a similar way. Therefore, we investigated the effects of noxious primes on the perception of the valence of subsequent semantic stimuli. In two experiments, 48 healthy subjects were asked to give their valence ratings regarding different semantic stimuli (pain-related, negative, positive, and neutral adjectives) after they were primed with noxious electrical stimuli of moderate intensity. Experiment 1 focused on the existence of the effect, experiment 2 focused on the length of the effect. Valence ratings of pain-related, negative, and positive words (not neutral words) became more negative after a painful electrical prime was applied in contrast to no prime. This effect was more pronounced for pain-related words compared to negative, pain-unrelated words. Furthermore, the priming effect continued to affect the valence ratings even some minutes after the painful priming had stopped. So, painful primes are influencing the perception of semantic stimuli as well as semantic primes are influencing the perception of painful stimuli.