Pain processing in multisensory environments

“Don’t look and it won’t hurt” is common ad­vice heard before receiving an injection, but is there any truth in this statement? Pain pro­cessing can be separated into two major components: a sensory-discriminative com­ponent, which reflects the location and inten­sity of a painful event, and an affective-mo­tivational component that reflects the un­pleasantness of pain. The differentiation be­tween these components and the effects of additional sensory inputs on them becomes apparent if you watch a needle penetrating your skin: On the one hand, it may be some­what reassuring to know precisely when and where to expect the pinprick, on the other hand, you eye-witness damage inflicted on your body, which can increase personal dis­tress. Here we review recent studies, which demonstrate that a host of variables such as onset timing, spatial alignment, semantic meaning, and attention differentially affect how visual inputs influence pain processing. These studies also indicate that there is some truth in the opening statement.