The common cold, pattern sensitivity and contrast sensitivity

Results from two studies involving challenge with respiratory syncytial viruses showed that volunteers who developed colds were more sensitive to a visually distracting pattern presented prior to virus challenge than were volunteers who did not get a cold. Volunteers with sub-clinical infections rep...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological Medicine 1992-05, Vol.22 (2), p.487-494
Main Authors: Smith, Andrew P., Tyrrell, David A. J., Barrow, G. Ian, Higgins, Peter G., Bull, Susan, Trickett, Susan, Wilkins, Arnold J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Arousal
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Common Cold - microbiology
Common Cold - psychology
Coronaviridae
Female
Human viral diseases
Humans
Infectious diseases
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Original Articles
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Respiratory Syncytial Viruses
Rhinovirus
Sensory Thresholds
Viral diseases
Viral diseases of the respiratory system and ent viral diseases
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Summary:Results from two studies involving challenge with respiratory syncytial viruses showed that volunteers who developed colds were more sensitive to a visually distracting pattern presented prior to virus challenge than were volunteers who did not get a cold. Volunteers with sub-clinical infections reported more illusions after virus challenge than they had done before, whereas uninfected volunteers and those with colds tended to report fewer illusions on the second test. These effects did not occur when volunteers were challenged with either a coronavirus or rhinovirus. Overall, the results confirm that behavioural measures may be related to susceptibility to subsequent illness, and that viral infections may influence visual perception. They also show that the effects vary according to the nature of the infecting agent, which agrees with results from studies looking at other aspects of behaviour.
ISSN:0033-2917
1469-8978
DOI:10.1017/S0033291700030427