Pain Pain Pain

The readings for this week focused on pain as well as social cognition. I found one of the most interesting topics is the relationship between what is occurring on an internal level, as well as a social one. For example, pain has been proved to be hugely subjective, affected largely by cognition. Within “Why rejection hurts: a common neural alarm system for physical and social pain,” researchers discovered that the presence of social support increases an individual’s tolerance of electric shock stimulation. We will expand upon this during our presentation this week, but Carolyn and I read an article on this topic, which found that positive expectations during a painful experience actually decreased the level of pain experienced. It seems that our psychological approach to a situation actually does have an internal effect on our bodies. At several points during the semester, we have discussed the power of the mind on the rest of the body. This concept of pain as subjective seems to be another good example of that.

I was particularly intrigued by the article, “How we predict what other people are going to do” by Chris and Uta Frith. They found that “amygdala activation has been consistently shown as a sign of fear that is elicited unconsciously by viewing a face from another race. When white Americans were shown the faces of unknown black Americans, activity was elicited in the amygdala… The amygdala response to black faces was reduced when the faces were presented for 525 ms rather than 30 ms, and, associated with this reduction, there was increased activity in areas of frontal cortex concerned with control and regulation.” (Page 2) It appears that the patients tried to shift their immediate reaction, thus leading to the reduced amygdala activity. This relationship between their primary reaction and an attempt at mental control was striking for me.

Further, during their discussion of our ability to predict the actions of others, they noted that the process is not selective to a biological target (Page 4). My conference work is about emotional responses to music and I came upon a similar finding. Research has noted that learning music is about making predictions. We can guess the course of a song without ever having heard it, because of a natural understanding of pattern and structure. Additionally, we make predictions based on our prior experience with songs. Thus, when the Friths noted that we are able to make judgments about non-biological targets, I was reminded of my own research. I liked all of the readings for this week, but was continuously struck by the interplay between what is occurring internally and how that is affected by external, social situations.