Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

NEUROSCIENCE

Biased perception and learning in pain

It is a general principle that we learn from experience, building expectations about the future that then affect perception. A new study focuses on how expectations influence learning about pain and shows that we prioritize information that confirms our prior expectations, leading to a self-perpetuating bias in judging the intensity of pain.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Sterzer, P., Frith, C. & Petrovic, P. Curr. Biol. 18, R697–R698 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Powers, A. R., Mathys, C. & Corlett, P. R. Science 357, 596–600 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Koyama, T., McHaffie, J. G., Laurienti, P. J. & Coghill, R. C. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 102, 12950–12955 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Jepma, M., Koban, L., van Doorn, J., Jones, M. & Wager, T. D. Nat. Hum. Behav. https://doi.org/s41562-018-0455-8 (2018).

  5. Friston, K. Neural Netw. 16, 1325–1352 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. de Lange, F. P., Heilbron, M. & Kok, P. Trends Cogn. Sci. 22, 764–779 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Kok, P., Mostert, P. & de Lange, F. P. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 10473–10478 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Zunhammer, M., Bingel, U. & Wager, T. D. for the Placebo Imaging Consortium. JAMA Neurol. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaneurol.2018.2017 (2018) .

  9. Atlas, L. Y. & Wager, T. D. in Placebo Vol. 225 (eds Benedetti, F., Enck, P., Frisaldi, E. & Schedlowski, M.) 37–69 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2014).

  10. Büchel, C., Geuter, S., Sprenger, C. & Eippert, F. Neuron 81, 1223–1239 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katja Wiech.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wiech, K. Biased perception and learning in pain. Nat Hum Behav 2, 804–805 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0468-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0468-3

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing