Dr Brianna Beck, University of Kent

A signal detection approach to human pain perception: from nociceptive processing to subjective experience

Pain is one of our most salient experiences, yet it has proven difficult to quantify, even in adult humans who can directly report their pain. Common measures of pain intensity reflect not only pain perception, but also task demands, response strategies, and other non-sensory factors. My research applies psychophysical methods to measure nociceptive processing of acute painful stimuli in healthy human adults, and to distinguish effects on discriminative coding in the nociceptive system from biases in perceived or reported pain level. I will present a series of behavioural and electrophysiological experiments demonstrating how such an approach can help elucidate the mechanisms behind cognitive modulations of pain (e.g. placebo effects) and distinguish between "objective" and "subjective" contributions to pain perception.

Website: https://www.kent.ac.uk/psychology/people/1308/beck-brianna

Twitter: @BriannaCBeck