Martien Schrooten

Modulation of responses to emotional information in pathological anxiety

This study demonstrates, for the first time, that in pathological anxiety, behavioural responses depend on spatial correspondence to emotional information. Anxious patients and healthy controls were presented with word pairs consisting of one emotional and one neutral word (one above the other) and were asked to respond to the print colour of each pair by pressing the upper or lower response key. Patients responded faster when the required response did spatially correspond with a threat-related or positive word than when not; controls showed no significant response modulation. Response patterns were similar with 14 ms and 500 ms word presentation. These results are taken to suggest that these anxious patients preferentially respond to threat-relevant and positive information and are impaired to counteract this early tendency.

Anxiety-related biases in visual orienting and spatial motor response selection independently assessed by a probe-classification task

This dot-probe study assessed anxiety-related biases in visual attentional orienting and spatial motor response selection (motor attention) in high- and low-trait-anxious adults, and whether anxiety-related biases depend on response speed. Emotional-neutral word pairs appeared for 14 or 500 ms, with one word of each pair replaced by a probe. Visual attention bias to emotional words was reflected by faster responses to probes replacing emotional words (spatial correspondence between probe and word positions). Response selection bias was reflected by faster responses when emotional word position (top/bottom screen) spatially corresponded to response position (upper/lower response key). Results revealed anxiety-related bias in visual attention for physical-threat words. In distributional analyses, this bias was associated with slower responses in the 14 ms condition (first task half). Results also revealed anxiety-related effects of spatial correspondence between emotional word and response, which are discussed in terms of increased bias in motor attention towards emotional stimuli in anxiety.

963 PAIN-RELATED FEAR IS A BETTER PREDICTOR OF DISABILITY THAN IS PAIN INTENSITY, ALSO IN CHRONIC ABDOMINAL PAIN

Background and Aims: Emerging literature suggests an important relationship between traumatic event histories, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic pain. Currently, this relationship remains unclarified. This may be because this relationship is very complex and the ability of human beings to face and overcome traumatic experiences has been generally ignored by psychology. The present study examines self-reports of pain, traumatic event histories, PTSD symptoms, resilience, pain acceptance, procedural variables and disability in women with chronic pain. Methods: Ninety women with chronic back pain attended Primary Care services in Malaga. This sample was divided into three groups: 1) women without traumatic event histories (N=30); 2) women with traumatic event histories and low or no PTSD symptoms (N=33); and 3) women with high PTSD symptoms (N=27). During an interview, patients self-reported sociodemographic variables, pain intensity, traumatic event histories, PTSD symptoms, resilience, pain acceptance, procedural variables (fear-avoidance beliefs, catastrophizing and hypervigilance) and disability. Results: Analyses showed significant differences between the three groups in pain intensity, resilience, pain acceptance, fear-avoidance beliefs, hypervigilance and disability. Post hoc analyses showed that the third group had higher scores in pain intensity, fear-avoidance beliefs, hypervigilance and disability; moreover, this group had lower scores in pain acceptance and resilience than the other two groups. Conclusions: These results suggest that the evaluation of traumatic event histories and PTSD symptoms, and especially the ability of human beings to face traumatic experiences, may be a relevant component of a complete psychosocial assessment of chronic pain patients.

962 ATTENTIONAL BIAS TO PAIN IS INHIBITED WHEN ONE IS PURSUING A CONCURRENT GOAL

Background and Aims: Emerging literature suggests an important relationship between traumatic event histories, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic pain. Currently, this relationship remains unclarified. This may be because this relationship is very complex and the ability of human beings to face and overcome traumatic experiences has been generally ignored by psychology. The present study examines self-reports of pain, traumatic event histories, PTSD symptoms, resilience, pain acceptance, procedural variables and disability in women with chronic pain. Methods: Ninety women with chronic back pain attended Primary Care services in Malaga. This sample was divided into three groups: 1) women without traumatic event histories (N=30); 2) women with traumatic event histories and low or no PTSD symptoms (N=33); and 3) women with high PTSD symptoms (N=27). During an interview, patients self-reported sociodemographic variables, pain intensity, traumatic event histories, PTSD symptoms, resilience, pain acceptance, procedural variables (fear-avoidance beliefs, catastrophizing and hypervigilance) and disability. Results: Analyses showed significant differences between the three groups in pain intensity, resilience, pain acceptance, fear-avoidance beliefs, hypervigilance and disability. Post hoc analyses showed that the third group had higher scores in pain intensity, fear-avoidance beliefs, hypervigilance and disability; moreover, this group had lower scores in pain acceptance and resilience than the other two groups. Conclusions: These results suggest that the evaluation of traumatic event histories and PTSD symptoms, and especially the ability of human beings to face traumatic experiences, may be a relevant component of a complete psychosocial assessment of chronic pain patients.

Inducing impulsivity versus inhibition affects food intake in a sample of healthy women

Previous research has related impulsivity to increased food intake and obesity. However, the precise nature of this relationship is not clear. One possibility is that impulsivity causes overeating and hence contributes to overweight. To test this possibility, we induced impulsivity versus inhibition to see whether this would affect subsequent food intake. Participants performed the stop signal task with either an inhibition instruction or an impulsive instruction, and were then asked to do a taste test. We expected that inducing impulsivity, by training people to act impulsively during the task, would lead to more food intake during a subsequent bogus taste test compared to inducing inhibition. Restraint and current dieting were also measured. Restraint status had no effect, but dieting status turned out to be an important moderating factor: the non-dieters acted as expected and ate more after the impulsivity induction than after the inhibition induction. However, current dieters did the opposite and ate more after the inhibition induction. Possible explanations are discussed. At least for non-dieters, we can conclude that heightened impulsivity versus inhibition leads to higher food intake.