ArticlePain reports2021
Is clinical, musculoskeletal pain associated with poorer logical reasoning?
Article in Pain reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Choosing well: A narrative review on chronic pain and decision-making.The journal of pain · 2025Review
- Impact of Experimentally Induced Pain on Logical Reasoning and Underlying Attention-Related Psychophysiological Mechanisms.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- The impact of chronic pain on creative ideation: An examination of the underlying attention-related psychophysiological mechanisms.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionIt has been hypothesized that pain disrupts system 2 processes (eg, working memory) presumed to underlie logical reasoning. A recent study examining the impact of experimentally induced pain on logical reasoning found no evidence of an effect.
objectivesThe aim of this study was to examine whether clinical pain, which is qualitatively different from experimental pain, would lower the ability to reason logically.
methodsNinety-six participants completed a questionnaire containing 3 different logical reasoning tasks (the cognitive reflection test, the belief bias syllogisms task, and the conditional inference task), questions about pain variables (present pain intensity, pain intensity during the last 24 hours, the influence of pain on daily activities, pain duration, and pain persistence), questions about other pain-related states (anxiety, depression, and fatigue), and pain-relieving medication. Correlations between the logical reasoning tasks and the pain variables were calculated.
resultsFor 2 of the 3 logical reasoning tasks (the cognitive reflection test and the belief bias syllogisms task), clinical pain was unrelated to logical reasoning. Performance on context-free logical reasoning showed a significant negative correlation with present pain intensity, but not with the other pain variables.
conclusionThis finding that logical reasoning ability is largely unrelated to clinical pain is highly consistent with previous research on experimentally induced pain. Pain should probably not constitute a significant barrier to logical reasoning in everyday life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.