Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Anesthesiol. Jul 27, 2015; 4(2): 13-16
Published online Jul 27, 2015. doi: 10.5313/wja.v4.i2.13
Translating the expression of pain in the face of uncertainty: The importance of human pain experiments for applied and clinical science
Eric Kruger, Jacob M Vigil
Eric Kruger, Jacob M Vigil, Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, United States
Author contributions: Each author contributed equally to the production of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Eric Kruger and Jacob M Vigil do not report any conflict of interest in the ideas associated with or the production of this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jacob M Vigil, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, MSC03 2220, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, United States. vigilJ@unm.edu
Telephone: +1-505-2770374
Received: January 28, 2015
Peer-review started: January 31, 2015
First decision: March 20, 2015
Revised: April 12, 2015
Accepted: May 5, 2015
Article in press: May 6, 2015
Published online: July 27, 2015
Processing time: 179 Days and 20.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The experience of pain has much to gain from a social psychology perspective where experiments modulate the patient’s context and affect their expression. Clinicians and providers should understand that listening sends powerful social cues back to the patient in terms of empathetic feedback. When this feedback is provided in a timely fashion (at or near the time of onset) and in combination with ruling out serious medical pathology a clinician can provide powerful signals that changes patient’s experience of pain.