Page 78 - Javanan Magazine Issue # 1904

PSYCHOLOGICAL
PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUE No. 1902
ISSUE No. 1856
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES JAVANAN

JAVANAN
Dr. Alan A.
Modarressi LOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Clinical and A SOCIOCULTURAL AND MIND AND BODY OUTLOOK
Neuro-Psychologyst
In this column, we examine the mental health issues in the context
of social, culture, and physiological concerns of the Iranian community

ccording to PsychPost, in a IS PAIN FELT MORE INTENSELY IN YOUR LANGUAGE
groundbreaking study pub-
Alished in Social Cognitive and A New Study Reveals How Pain Hurts More in One language Than Another
Affective Neuroscience, scientists
have found evidence that bilingual
individuals perceive pain differently response to external events but has a stronger in the language that matched language in which a bilingual person
depending on the language they are strong subjective component. It’s eas- the participant’s stronger cultural ori- experiences/processes a physically
using. The study, involving Spanish- ier to see how having different feel- entation. This suggests that cultural painful event can affect not only the
English bilingual adults, found that ing words in one language vs another
participants rated pain more intensely might influence our emotions, but to identity can modulate the way lan- level of pain they report but also the
guage impacts our sensory experi-
way that physical sensation is pro-
when using Spanish compared to have language alter the way our bod-
English, suggesting a profound con- ies and minds respond to a physically ences, including pain. cessed in the brain. Specifically, the
They looked at a few different brain
sensory qualities of the experience
nection between language, culture, painful experience would really show
and sensory experience. the power of language in perceptual systems that they thought might ex- are highlighted to different degrees
Previous research has long hinted at processing. plain differences in pain across lan- in different languages. However, it’s
the intricate ways in which our cultur- The core of the study involved a guages and they were surprised that not simply ‘more pain in Spanish for
al and linguistic backgrounds shape series of pain assessments conducted the somatosensory processing areas everyone. Rather, it seems to be that
our experiences and perceptions. The in both English and Spanish sessions. (those regions that directly process the pain is felt more strongly when it
concept of ‘linguistic relativity’ sug- Participants were exposed to heat tactile/feeling sensations) showed is processed in the language that the
gests that the language we use can stimuli, a universally recognized form the largest language effects and had person feels a stronger cultural con-
influence our thought processes and of physical discomfort, and asked to the largest effect on the pain reports nection to.”
perceptions. Studies in cultural psy- rate the intensity of the pain they ex- people ultimately gave. This means 1) that the effect of pain
chology have shown that bilingual perienced. These ratings were made Initially, they had expected that in a different language doesn’t neces-
individuals often ‘switch’ between on a scale from 0 to 10, providing a people might just be paying more at- sarily have the same effect on every-
cultural mindsets based on the lan- quantifiable measure of their pain per- tention to the pain in one language vs one (if I feel similarly connected to
guage they are using, a phenomenon ception. This approach was designed the other, and while we saw some evi- both cultures, the language doesn’t
known as ‘cultural frame switching’. to tease out any differences in pain dence for that, but it showed that dif- seems to affect my pain reporting
This intriguing interplay of language perception that might arise from the ferences in the sensory experience of much) and 2) some people (those
and culture has been observed to af- language context in which the experi- the pain across languages are driving identifying more strongly with US-
fect various psychological and neural ence was framed. changes in pain ratings, particularly American culture) appear to experi-
processes. But the study went beyond just for individuals who identify more ence stimuli as more painful in Eng-
Pain is known to be influenced by these subjective ratings. The research- strongly with the Hispanic side of lish while more Hispanic-identified
various psychological and social fac- ers employed functional Magnetic their culture. bilinguals show signs of more intense
tors. Recognizing the importance of Resonance Imaging (fMRI) as they Overall, their study shows that the pain in Spanish.
understanding pain in a multicultural processed the pain stimuli. This cut-
context, especially given the health- ting-edge imaging technique allowed
care disparities faced by Hispanic the team to observe and record brain
communities in the United States, re- activity in real-time, particularly fo-
searchers at the University of Miami cusing on areas known to be involved
set out to explore how bilingual indi- in processing pain and language.
viduals experience pain in different Findings of the Study-Participants
language contexts. consistently rated the pain as more
“My personal interest in this topic intense when they were in the Span-
first emerged through learning Span- ish language sessions compared to
ish (and later Portuguese) as a foreign the English ones. This language effect
language,” said study author Morgan was not just limited to subjective rat-
Gianola, a T32 Postdoctoral Scholar ings; it was also reflected in the brain’s
for Behavioral Medicine Research in activity. The fMRI scans revealed that
Cardiovascular Diseases. “There are certain brain regions associated with
numerous ways in which different pain processing showed increased ac-
languages encode similar situations tivity during the Spanish sessions.
and experiences in very distinct ways, Moreover, the researchers discov-
and from a subjective perspective ered that the brain’s responses in areas
they have different ‘feelings’ to them. associated with sensory and affective
“I was interested in showing ex- processing of pain mediated the effect
perimentally that this might actually of language on pain intensity ratings.
be the case. The potential link to pain Interestingly, a participant’s cultural
was particularly exciting as pain is orientation – whether they identified
highly clinically relevant (most ma- more with Hispanic or US-American
jor medical complaints involve pain culture – played a significant role in
in some way) and is often thought how language influenced their pain
about in terms of being an ‘objective’ perception. The pain response was

DANESH FOROUGHI, PH.D. Alan Modarressi, PhD, QME
Licensed Clinical Psychologist, PSY13680 Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Licensed Marriage, Family & Child Psychotherapist, MFC23455 Qualified Medical Evaluator
Certified National Board of Addiction Examiners #4974 Certified Psychophsychologist
Tel: (310) 940-3642 Diplomat, American Academy of Pain Management
15720 Ventura Blvd., Second Fl. #224 Encino CA 91436 (818) 501-6080 (562) 861-7226

78