ABSTRACT
Numerous investigators have suggested that memory for pain is particularly accurate. In these studies, correlations between rated pain at the time of some injury, medical procedure and retrospective ratings some time later are reported as rather modest. The most familiar finding in the pain and memory literature is that when individuals are asked to recall a past painful experience, they recall its intensity as more severe than the original experience itself. Many investigators have suggested that one way to avoid the inaccuracies thought to be inherent in the self-report of pain is to ask patients to recall changes in pain-related behaviors and changes in daily activities as a result of pain rather than the qualities of the painful experience itself. Compared with much of the literature reviewed, which generally reports considerable inaccuracy in recall of pain among small samples of patients undergoing treatment in pain clinics, recall among people subjects across the studies reported here was characterized by its accuracy.
