2011/01/01 by Eleanor Jameson, Judy Trevena, Nic Swain · 77 citations
Neuroscience · Medicine · Computer Science · Psychology · Engineering · #Pain Management and Placebo Effect #Pediatric Pain Management Techniques #Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts #Distraction #Task (project management) #Psychology #Anxiety #Pain tolerance #Medicine #Physical therapy #Audiology #Threshold of pain #Cognitive psychology #Anesthesia #Psychiatry #Engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.1155/2011/856014
published in Pain Research and Management 16(1), 27-32 (Hindawi Publishing Corporation)
openalex publication_date 2011/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
The current study investigated whether active distraction reduces participants' experience of pain more than passive distraction during a cold pressor task. In the first experiment, 60 participants were asked to submerge their hand in cold (2°C) water for as long as they could tolerate. They did this with no distraction, and then with active (electronic gaming system) and passive (television) distraction, in randomly assigned order. Tolerance time, pain intensity ratings and task absorption ratings were measured for each condition. A second experiment attempted to control for participants' expectations about the effects of distraction on pain. Forty participants underwent the same experimental procedure, but were given verbal suggestions about the effects of distraction by the experimenter before each distraction condition. Participants in both experiments had a significantly higher pain tolerance and reported less pain with the active distraction compared with passive or no distraction. Participants reported being more absorbed, and were significantly more willing to do the task again when they had the active distraction compared with both passive distraction and no distraction. They also had more enjoyment, less anxiety and greater reduction in pain with active distraction than with passive distraction. There was no effect of suggestion. These experiments offer further support for the use of electronic games as a method of pain control.