The effects of imminent minor surgery on the cognitive processing of health and interpersonal threat words

Women in hospital for a laparoscopy and control subjects were examined on a version of the Stroop test in which the distracting effect of word content on speed of colour naming was examined. Both laparoscopy patients and controls were slowed by words related to interpersonal threat but only the laparoscopy patients were slowed by words that related to health threats. This suggests that a specific temporary threat can alter attentional biases.