title: Tactile perceptual processes and their relationship to medically unexplained symptoms and health anxiety.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The Somatic Signal Detection Task (SSDT; Lloyd, Manson, Brown and Poliakoff, 2008) is an innovative paradigm to study perceptual processes related to physical symptoms. It allows examining touch illusions as a laboratory analog of medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) according to the cognitive model of MUS proposed by Brown (2004). The present study compared psychopathologic measures of MUS and health anxiety with SSDT parameters. Furthermore, we aimed to define a reliable measurement of tactile perception threshold.
  
  
  METHODS
  67 participants of a student population reported whether they detected tactile stimuli at their fingertip which were presented in half of the test trials. An additional brief visual stimulus was displayed with a probability of 50%. The rate of false-positive perceptions of the tactile stimulus in its absence, response bias, tactile sensitivity, and tactile perception thresholds was recorded. Questionnaires were used to assess MUS and health anxiety.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The visual stimulus led to a more liberal response criterion (i.e., the tendency to report tactile perceptions irrespective of whether a stimulus was presented or not) and a non-significant increase in tactile sensitivity. The false-alarm rate when reporting the tactile stimulus was correlated with MUS (r=.26). Tactile perception thresholds were measured reliably (r(tt)=.84).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Some of the SSDT parameters, especially the response criterion (c), were related to self-report-measures of MUS and health anxiety. Previous SSDT results were replicated and extended. Further SSDT studies with clinical samples are needed.
authors: Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany. annakatzer@gmx.de
authors: Anna
authors: A
authors: Katzer
authors: Daniel
authors: D
authors: Oberfeld
authors: Wolfgang
authors: W
authors: Hiller
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Witthöft
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*