The moderating influence of attentional bias on the efficacy of distraction vs mindfulness in an experimental pain task

Brief Mindfulness: A 10-15 minute mindfulness exercise will be delivered in a laboratory setting. The exercise will teach undergraduate students to focus on mindfulness of breath and body scanning. Hence, they will learn to focus on internal sensations non-judgementally immediately before completing two acute experimental pain tasks. Two water tanks manufactured by Thermoline Scientific Australia were used to conduct the cold pressor task. Each tank was comprised of a 20L circulating water bath chamber (model TLWB-30), immersion cooler (TIC-400) and a heat circulator (TU-3). In order to ensure participants initial arm temperature was controlled for, they were firstly asked to submerge their arm up to the elbow for 30 seconds in the warm tank, with a maintained temperature of 37degrees C ( plus or minus 0.5). Following this, they submerged the same arm up to the elbow into the tank of cold water, maintained at 5 degrees C(plus or minus 0.5). Research in the past indicates the cold pressor task produces the “Lewis Effect”, whereby pain is produced by vasodilation of the blood vessels due to warm water, quickly followed by vasoconstriction due to cold water. A series of shocks a 0.5, 1.5 and 3.0 microamps will be administered and a pain rating will be recorded.