The Effects of Brief Mindfulness Training on Attentional Processes: Mindfulness Increases Prepulse Facilitation but Not Prepulse Inhibition.

Mindfulness is intentional focus of one's attention on emotions, thoughts, or sensations occurring in the present moment with a nonjudgmental attitude. Recently there has been increased interest in the effects of mindfulness practice on psychological processes such as concentration, focus, and attention. In the present study, a prepulse inhibition/facilitation (PPI/PPF) paradigm was employed to investigate the effect of brief mindfulness practice on automatic attention regulation processes.

Model Gender Interacts With Expressed Emotion to Enhance Startle: Angry Male and Happy Female Faces Produce the Greatest Potentiation.

Several studies have implied gender differences in startle reaction to emotional facial expressions. However, few studies have been designed to investigate the difference between responding to emotional female vs. male faces, nor gender differences in responses.

Developing a model for measuring fear of pain in Norwegian samples: The Fear of Pain Questionnaire Norway.

Background: Fear of pain is highly correlated with pain report and physiological measures of arousal when pain is inflicted. The Fear of Pain Questionnaire III (FPQ-III) and The Fear of Pain Questionnaire Short Form (FPQ-SF) are self-report inventories developed for assessment of fear of pain (FOP). A previous study assessed the fit of the FPQ-III and the FPQ-SF in a Norwegian non-clinical sample and proved poor fit of both models.

The Fear of Pain Questionnaire-III and the Fear of Pain Questionnaire-Short Form: a confirmatory factor analysis.

Background: The Fear of Pain Questionnaire-III (FPQ-III) is a widely used instrument to assess the fear of pain (FOP) in clinical and nonclinical samples. The FPQ-III has 30 items and is divided into three subscales: Severe Pain, Minor Pain and Medical Pain. Due to findings of poor fit of the original three-factor FPQ-III model, the Fear of Pain Questionnaire-Short Form (FPQ-SF) four-factor model has been suggested as an alternative.

In Your Face: Startle to Emotional Facial Expressions Depends on Face Direction.

Although faces are often included in the broad category of emotional visual stimuli, the affective impact of different facial expressions is not well documented. The present experiment investigated startle electromyographic responses to pictures of neutral, happy, angry, and fearful facial expressions, with a frontal face direction (directed) and at a 45° angle to the left (averted). Results showed that emotional facial expressions interact with face direction to produce startle potentiation: Greater responses were found for angry expressions, compared with fear and neutrality, with directed faces.

Nocebo hyperalgesia and the startle response.

Background: The literature on the effects of nocebo on pain is sparse. The present experimental study investigated whether suggestions of nocebo hyperalgesia modified the startle response and whether increased startle contributed to the nocebo hyperalgesic effect.

Methods: A design with four groups was employed; the participants were randomized into either a placebo group, a natural history group, or into two nocebo groups.

Induced fear reduces the effectiveness of a placebo intervention on pain.

Fear was induced by the anticipation of electric shock in order to investigate whether fear reduced the effectiveness of a placebo intervention on reported pain and the acoustic startle reflex. Thirty-three subjects participated in a 3 Condition (Natural History [NH], Placebo [P], Placebo+Fear [PF])×3 Test (Pretest, Posttest 1, Posttest 2) within-subject design, tested on 3 separate days. Measures of fear were fear of pain (FOP), measured by the Fear of Pain Questionnaire (FPQ-III); fear-potentiated startle; and a self-report measure that assessed the effectiveness of the fear induction procedure.

In the Blink of an Eye: Investigating the Role of Awareness in Fear Responding by Measuring the Latency of Startle Potentiation.

The latency of startle reflex potentiation may shed light on the aware and unaware processes underlying associative learning, especially associative fear learning. We review research suggesting that single-cue delay classical conditioning is independent of awareness of the contingency between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US). Moreover, we discuss research that argues that conditioning independent of awareness has not been proven.

Fear potentiated startle at short intervals following conditioned stimulus onset during delay but not trace conditioning.

The latency of conditioned fear after delay and trace conditioning was investigated. Some argue that delay conditioning is not dependent on awareness. In contrast, trace conditioning, where there is a gap between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US), is assumed to be dependent on awareness.

Conditioned facilitation of the unconditioned reflex after classical eyeblink conditioning.

The present study (N=40) investigated the time-course of conditioned facilitation of the unconditioned eyeblink reflex (UR). In a single-cue delay classical conditioning procedure, a tone conditioned stimulus (CS) signaled an airpuff unconditioned stimulus (airpuff US) to the eye. A paired group received 40 trials of CS/US presentations with an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 200 ms.

The effect of stress on absorption of acetaminophen.

Rationale: There is a large variability in the response to pharmacological treatment. Some studies have linked this variability to stress levels, i.e.