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Motivational theories of pain highlight its role in people's choices of actions that avoid bodily damage. By contrast, little is known regarding how pain influences action implementation. To explore this less-understood area, we conducted a study in which participants had to rapidly point to a target area to win money while avoiding an overlapping penalty area that would cause pain in their contralateral hand. We found that pain intensity and target-penalty proximity repelled participants' movement away from pain and that motor execution was influenced not by absolute pain magnitudes but by relative pain differences. Our results indicate that the magnitude and probability of pain have a precise role in guiding motor control and that representations of pain that guide action are, at least in part, relative rather than absolute. Additionally, our study shows that the implicit monetary valuation of pain, like many explicit valuations (e.g., patients' use of rating scales in medical contexts), is unstable, a finding that has implications for pain treatment in clinical contexts.

Original publication

DOI

10.1177/0956797610370160

Type

Journal article

Journal

Psychological science

Publication Date

06/2010

Volume

21

Pages

840 - 847

Addresses

Cognitive, Perceptual, and Brain Sciences, University College London, Gower St., London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom.

Keywords

Humans, Pain, Pain Measurement, Electroshock, Photic Stimulation, Punishment, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Movement, Female, Male, Young Adult