wattsd comments on Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation - Less Wrong
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Comparing pain to chess and music was intriguing. Intuitively, it seems that attention to pain is qualitatively different. Pain impinges on our attentions, while the other two activities are objects of attention. On the other hand, it is certainly possible to focus on pain or distracting one self from pain. The thesis of the article suggests that by directing attention towards pain, it gets worse, while directing attention away from pain can reduce it. This seems to be a testable hypothesis. Is there any study about this?
I'm not sure there is a study about directing attention to pain, but there is a video game being used to reduce pain, presumably by directing attention away from it.
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/research/vrpain/
Edit: From the page: