Individual differences in attending to touch versus vision under threatening and non-threatening conditions: implications for medically unexplained symptoms

Ellen Poliakoff, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester

Abstract
Health professionals frequently encounter patients with “medically unexplained symptoms” (MUS), defined as disabling physical symptoms that defy organic explanation. A recent model suggests that MUS arise from the repetitive allocation of attention onto the body, particularly under conditions of threat (Brown, 2004). We investigated this hypothesis by examining individual differences in attention to touch versus vision in non-clinical participants with either high or low scores on a measure of MUS (the somatoform dissociation questionnaire; SDQ-20). Participants viewed body and non-body pictures that were either threatening or non-threatening before responding to a visual or tactile stimulus. Tactile performance (inverse efficiency) was subtracted from visual performance to provide an index of “tactile bias” in each condition. High scorers on the SDQ-20 showed a larger tactile bias following threatening body pictures at a short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA; 250ms). In addition, across SDQ-20 groups, tactile bias following body picture stimuli at a short SOA correlated negatively with scores on the Somatosensory Amplification Scale, a measure of the tendency to experience and interpret bodily sensations as unpleasant. The study provides initial support for the hypothesis that people with a tendency to develop MUS attend more to their bodies under conditions of somatic threat.

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