Attentional bias in itch & psoriasis

Etty, Sarah Elizabeth

Abstract

Attentional bias to threat is known to be altered in people with anxiety, however this phenomenon in people experiencing acute itch and people with psoriasis has not been well investigated. Attention is known to modulate itch intensity, however, the degree to which acute itch affects attention is not currently well understood. Two studies, using either itch-related words (Exp. 1) or itch-related images (Exp. 2) were therefore conducted to investigate whether acute itch induces an attentional bias towards or away from visual itch-related stimuli, and if so, whether it occurs in the early or later stages of processing. Healthy individuals were subjected to a skin prick (either histamine or placebo) followed by completion of a spatial cueing paradigm. Results suggest that experience of acute itch induces attentional avoidance of visual itch threat words, which occurs at a later processing stage in the form of facilitated disengagement of attention from itch and/or delayed disengagement from neutral information. No pattern of attentional bias for itch-related images was found. The results of Experiment 1 suggest that experiencing acute itch changes attentional processing of lexical information, by inducing attentional avoidance of visual itch threat words.
Having validated the research paradigm, the second part of the PhD investigated the role of attention in people with psoriasis; a chronic skin disease that causes itchy and often painful lesions. The social impact of psoriasis and its association with anxiety has been well documented, however, the role of attention in psoriasis is not widely known, and existing research presents divergent conclusions. Volunteer samples of 100 participants with psoriasis and 100 matched controls completed 6 versions of an emotional spatial cueing task and a single emotional Stroop task; each version of the spatial cueing task differed by SOA, type of cue (words vs images), and valence of control words (negative vs positive). Results showed that no attentional bias was detected using the emotional spatial cueing task, but that disease-specific words induced longer reaction times than neutral words in psoriasis participants when using the emotional Stroop task. This suggests that people with psoriasis do not display attentional bias for disease-specific information, but that the presence of this information produces an overall attentional disruption in this population.

Citation

Etty, S. E. Attentional bias in itch & psoriasis. (Thesis). University of Hull. https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4224537

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jan 5, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 24, 2023
• Keywords: Psychology
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4224537
• Additional Information: Department of Psychology, The University of Hull
• Award Date: Apr 1, 2022