Syndrome-specific descriptor profiling: a psychophysiological and psychophysical approach.

Migraineurs and nonmigraineurs were compared in their selection of, psychophysical evaluation of, and psychophysiological response to verbal pain descriptors. Participants observed a series of 20 pain descriptors, each presented twice, 12 sec each time. Skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded during each presentation. Using the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ), participants also selected pain descriptors that described migraine headaches. Results indicated that migraineurs demonstrated greater skin conductance responsivity to the visual presentation of pain descriptors as compared to nonmigraineurs. Pain descriptors more frequently selected by migraineurs on the MPQ were associated with greater skin conductance orienting responses. No differences were observed between migraineurs and nonmigraineurs in the number of intensity of pain descriptors chosen for any of the sensory, affective, evaluative, or miscellaneous dimensions of the MPQ. Results suggest that migraineurs may be conditioned or sensitized to particular sets of verbal pain descriptors and that these processes may serve to differentiate among pain sufferers and pain-free populations.

The perception and discrimination of arterial pulsations: implications for the behavioral treatment of hypertension.

The perception and discrimination of target visceral responses may be important for the development and control of physiological functions such as blood pressure. Despite this, biofeedback blood pressure studies have almost exclusively used auditory or visual feedback. The present experiment employed psychophysical scaling procedures to investigate subject's ability to perceive and discriminate pulsatile sensations associated with change in the intensity of arterial pulsations. The perceived intensity of these pulsations vary as a function of the relationship between arterial pressure and applied cuff pressure. The results indicated that maximum intensity pulsations were perceived when occluding cuff pressure equalled mean arterial pressure and that the perceived intensity of pulsations decreased monotonically as cuff pressure was varied relative to this point in either the systolic or diastolic direction. Furthermore, the function relating cuff pressure oscillation amplitude to applied cuff pressure was the same as that obtained for perceived pulsation amplitude. The finding that subjects could accurately discriminate different intensities of pulsating sensations suggests the possibility of their being employed as an effective discriminative stimulus in a blood pressure biofeedback procedure.

Evaluation of the cognitive component of political issues by use of classical conditioning.

The direct use of verbal and physiological response measures to assess the cognitive component of a sociopolitical attitude is made difficult by the multiple meanings of sociopolitical stimuli. In the present study a modified differential classical conditioning procedure was used to produce an unambiguous physiological (skin conductance) response to stimuli related to a discrete social concept (black relatedness and not black relatedness). It was demonstrated that conditioned stimuli clearly related to this specific concept produced a conditioned response. The results also showed that a series of more ambiguous test stimuli related to the 1972-1974 election campaigns produced a gradient of skin conductance responses that was related to the degree of black relatedness or not black relatedness of each stimulus as measured by other means. The implications of the results of this study to further research and other indicators of the cognitive component of attitude are discussed.

Decreased systolic blood pressure through operant conditioning techniques in patients with essential hypertension.

Operant conditioning-feedback techniques were employed to lower systolic blood pressure in seven patients with essential hypertension. In five of the patients, meaningful decreases of systolic blood pressure were obtained in the laboratory, ranging from 16 to 34 millimeters of mercury. The therapeutic value of such techniques remains to be established.

Shock-elicited pain and its reduction by concurrent tactile stimulation.

Human affective reactions to nociceptive electrical stimulation were attenuated by application of a tactile stimulus to the shocked site. No alteration was perceived when the same tactile stimulus was applied to a similar contralateral site. These results and a lack of alteration at sensation threshold demonstrate the effect to be more than simple masking and support the Melzack-Wall theory.