The Interruptive Effect of Pain in a Multitask Environment: An Experimental Investigation - 03/02/12
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, Geert Crombez , Christopher Eccleston †, Baptist Liefooghe , Stefaan Van Damme Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Address reprint requests to Dimitri M. L. Van Ryckeghem, Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.Abstract |
Daily life is characterized by the need to stop, start, repeat, and switch between multiple tasks. Here, we experimentally investigate the effects of pain, and its anticipation, in a multitask environment. Using a task-switching paradigm, participants repeated and switched between 3 tasks, of which 1 predicted the possible occurrence of pain. Half of the participants received low intensity pain (N = 30), and half high intensity pain (N = 30). Results showed that pain interferes with the performance of a simultaneous task, independent of the pain intensity. Furthermore, pain interferes with the performance on a subsequent task. These effects are stronger with high intensity pain than with low intensity pain. Finally, and of particular importance in this study, interference of pain on a subsequent task was larger when participants switched to another task than when participants repeated the same task.
Perspective |
This article is concerned with the interruptive effect of pain on people’s task performance by using an adapted task-switching paradigm. This adapted paradigm may offer unique possibilities to investigate how pain interferes with task performance while people repeat and switch between multiple tasks in a multitask environment.
Le texte complet de cet article est disponible en PDF.Key words : Pain, task switching, task interference, attention, pain anticipation
Plan
| Preparation of this paper was partly supported by Grant BOF/GOA2006/001 of Ghent University and FWO project G.017807. |
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| There are no conflicts of interest that may arise as a result of this research. |
Vol 13 - N° 2
P. 131-138 - février 2012 Retour au numéro
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