Pain Perception
The Psychology of Pain Perception Many people in today’s society are intrigued by how differently every person can perceive painful experiences and the variances between how painful something is for one person and how it is not painful for another at all. Everyone is looking for ways to make things less painful or even “pain free”, especially in the world of athletics. Researchers have investigated the psychology of the perception of pain in many different studies, as well as the emotions expressed during the perception of pain. My aim in this research is to gain a better understanding of how different coping methods and past experiences affect our perception of physical pain. I believe that there are many different techniques that can be used to increase our tolerance to pain and these are a few examples that I found.
An Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Preferred and Relaxing Music Listening on Pain Perception
Laura A Mitchell and Raymond MacDonald
In this study, the researchers were attempting to determine the effects of listening to different types of music and the participants’ perception of pain. In the beginning of the article, they explained that their question was if listening to music would lower one’s perception of painful stimuli and if that was the case what type of music would be the most effective. They hypothesized that based off other experiments that listening to music would lowered the perceived pain and that the most effective would be the participants preferred choice of music over the white noise and the specially designed relaxation music. In the study, 34 females and 20 males ranging from the ages 18-51 with a mean age of 22, were recruited through advertisement within a university and paid for participation. The method the researchers used was a cold pressor stimulation through use of a circulating cold water bath. Each participant was required to immerse their hand the cold bath three separate times five
An Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Preferred and Relaxing Music Listening on Pain Perception
Laura A Mitchell and Raymond MacDonald
In this study, the researchers were attempting to determine the effects of listening to different types of music and the participants’ perception of pain. In the beginning of the article, they explained that their question was if listening to music would lower one’s perception of painful stimuli and if that was the case what type of music would be the most effective. They hypothesized that based off other experiments that listening to music would lowered the perceived pain and that the most effective would be the participants preferred choice of music over the white noise and the specially designed relaxation music. In the study, 34 females and 20 males ranging from the ages 18-51 with a mean age of 22, were recruited through advertisement within a university and paid for participation. The method the researchers used was a cold pressor stimulation through use of a circulating cold water bath. Each participant was required to immerse their hand the cold bath three separate times five
References: Mitchell, Laura and MacDonald, Raymond. (2006). An experimental investigation of the effects of preferred and relaxing music listening on pain perception. Journal of Music Therapy 2006 Winter 43, 295-316 Smith, Noelle and Meuret, Alicia. (2012). The role of painful events and pain perception in blood-injection-injury fears. Journal of Behavior Therapy & Experimental Psychiatry Dec 2012, Vol 53 Issue 4, 1045-1048. Stephens, Richard and Allsop, Claire. (2012). Effect of manipulated state aggression on pain tolerance. Psychological Reports 2012 Aug 111, 311-321.