Externalizing the private experience of pain: a role for co-speech gestures in pain communication?

Exploring the Emotional Functions of Co-Speech Hand Gesture in Language and Communication

Research over the past four decades has built a convincing case that co-speech hand gestures play a powerful role in human cognition . However, this recent focus on the cognitive function of gesture has, to a large extent, overlooked its emotional role-a role that was once central to research on bodily expression. In the present review, we first give a brief summary of the wealth of research demonstrating the cognitive function of co-speech gestures in language acquisition, learning, and thinking. Building on this foundation, we revisit the emotional function of gesture across a wide range of communicative contexts, from clinical to artistic to educational, and spanning diverse fields, from cognitive neuroscience to linguistics to affective science. Bridging the cognitive and emotional functions of gesture highlights promising avenues of research that have varied practical and theoretical implications for human-machine interactions, therapeutic interventions, language evolution, embodied cognition, and more.

The effect of preconditioning on the modalities of pain management

OBJECTIVES

This study investigated the effect of positive preconditioning on the specific modality of verbal and touch interventions, in pain management.

METHODS

We compared pain ratings in 51 participants who underwent a cold pressor test twice (T1, T2). The results from the first test were used as a reference. For the second test, the participants were divided into 5 groups. Four groups received verbal or touch intervention during the test, with or without preconditioning. The fifth group was a control group. We compared dVAS (pain ratings at T1 minus T2) between groups to assess the effect of the interventions and the preconditioning. We also explored the within-group association between dVAS and pain-related traits.

RESULTS

We found a significant effect of preconditioning on dVAS. The post hoc test showed that the preconditioned verbal group reported higher dVAS than the non-preconditioned one. Participants' emotional awareness scores were negatively correlated with dVAS in the preconditioned touch group.

CONCLUSION

These data suggested that preconditioning enhances pain management, regardless of intervention modalities. However, the preconditioning effect for the touch modality was negatively associated with the participants' emotional awareness.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Communication must be adapted with caution, depending on the treatment and the patients' emotional status.

I see how you feel: Recipients obtain additional information from speakers' gestures about pain

OBJECTIVE

Despite the need for effective pain communication, pain is difficult to verbalise. Co-speech gestures frequently add information about pain that is not contained in the accompanying speech. We explored whether recipients can obtain additional information from gestures about the pain that is being described.

METHODS

Participants (n=135) viewed clips of pain descriptions under one of four conditions: 1) Speech Only; 2) Speech and Gesture; 3) Speech, Gesture and Face; and 4) Speech, Gesture and Face plus Instruction (short presentation explaining the pain information that gestures can depict). Participants provided free-text descriptions of the pain that had been described. Responses were scored for the amount of information obtained from the original clips.

FINDINGS

Participants in the Instruction condition obtained the most information, while those in the Speech Only condition obtained the least (all comparisons p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Gestures produced during pain descriptions provide additional information about pain that recipients are able to pick up without detriment to their uptake of spoken information.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Healthcare professionals may benefit from instruction in gestures to enhance uptake of information about patients' pain experiences.