Operant conditioning of the pain experience

Perceptual and Motor Skills
Richel LousbergA A Gielen

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out to study operant conditioning of pain report. Further, it was investigated whether pain-related psychophysiological and psychological measures (skin conductance response and magnitude matching) could also be conditioned operantly. In both experiments subjects received 12 painful electric shocks of equal intensity. In Exp. 1 healthy subjects were assigned to either a control group or an up-conditioning group. Up-conditioning occurred by verbally rewarding increases in pain report and punishing decreases. Analyses indicated that up-conditioning of both pain report and the pain-related psychophysiological measures succeeded. To rule out alternative explanations of the results (attention shift towards pain and conditioning of anxiety) the verbal punishments were adjusted in Exp. 2. A down-conditioning group was also added. The attempt to replicate the results of Exp. 1 failed and down-conditioning of the pain report could not be established. These inconsistent results are most probably due to modified punishment of responses. The consequences for the results of Exp. 1 are discussed. Based on the results of post hoc analyses, some suggestions are made for operant conditioning studies of pain.

Citations

Jan 21, 2012·Current Pain and Headache Reports·Rena GatzounisJohan W S Vlaeyen
Jan 7, 2016·Clinical Neurophysiology : Official Journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology·Raghavan GopalakrishnanAndre G Machado
Jun 4, 2008·Best Practice & Research. Clinical Rheumatology·Michael K Nicholas
Jan 13, 2004·Pain·Christopher D Jolliffe, Michael K Nicholas
Apr 9, 2005·The Clinical Journal of Pain·Richel LousbergHermie Hermens
Dec 13, 2005·The Clinical Journal of Pain·Marjolijn J SorbiJozien M Bensing
May 3, 2014·Journal of Neurophysiology·Andre G MachadoJohn C Mosher
Oct 5, 2019·Pain Reports·Thomas JanssensJohan W S Vlaeyen

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