Abstract
Pain-related pictures are useful for studying how individuals respond to pain-related stimulation. Such pictures can occasionally be found in databases for affective pictures. However, a validated database specifically for pain-related pictures is not available yet. In 2 experiments (N = 185 and 103, respectively), we developed and validated the Experimental Pain Pictures System (EPPS). In both experiments, negative valence, arousal, and painfulness ratings were compared between neutral-, sad-, and pain-related pictures. The pain-related pictures represented both deep and superficial somatic pain. Across the 2 experiments, pain-related pictures were judged as more negative, arousing, and painful than neutral pictures and more painful than sad pictures. The final EPPS contains 50 pictures of different painful events considered moderately to highly painful by participants. The EPPS is a valuable tool for studying pain-related responses, as it gives researchers a choice among many validated pictures depicting different types of pain, increasing the comparability between studies. PERSPECTIVE: This article presents the validation of the experimental pain pictures system, which consists of a set of pain-related pictures. The experimental pain pictures system is composed of pictures depicting different types of pain. Participants rated all the pictures as being negative, arousing, and painful.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2052-2062 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | The Journal of Pain |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 11 |
Early online date | 24 Jun 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2023 |
Keywords
- Arousal
- Database validation
- Negative valence
- Pain-related pictures
- Painfulness