Cognitive and Psychophysiological Investigation of Chronic Pain

<p>Using Bower’s (1981) associative network model of mood and memory, and Klinger’s theory of current concerns, it was hypothesized that the experience of chronic pain may be functionally similar to a mood state and that the chronicity of the condition may maintain it as a current concern. Specifically, it was hypothesized that chronic pain patients would not show any differences in reaction time and accuracy when making lexical decisions about pain-related, neutral, and nonwords. However, it was anticipated that chronic pain patients would show differences in physiological responding (particularly, increased skin conductance responses) when compared to controls. Results confirmed that there were no differences between chronic pain patients and control subjects on reaction time and accuracy. Physiological indices, on the other hand, showed that chronic pain patients exhibited diminished skin conductance response magnitudes overall when compared with controls. Moreover, unlike controls, chronic pain patients failed to show an acceleratory heart rate response at the end of the trials. Word type was not observed to produce differences in psychophysiological responding. These results are interpreted as suggesting the possibility of diminished attentional resource allocation in those individuals suffering from chronic pain</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year

1998

Author dc:creator

• Clegg, Amy D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jay L. Brand
• Paul Haerich
• Kiti Freier

• Biological Psychology
• Cognition and Perception
• Pain Management
• Psychology
• Pain (Psychology); Pain (Physiology); Pain Measurement.

Statement dc:rights

• This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/1509

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsrepository.llu.edu:etd-2285