Artifact in pain ratings,its implications for test-retest reliability,and correction by a new scaling procedure

The conventionally employed procedure for rating ischemic pain was found to produce a degree of response bias associated with the ceiling points of the scale used. A new approach permitting open-ended ratings followed by transformation of these ratings into a common decile scale provided far greater test-retest reliability. This was explained largely in terms of the attenuation of rating artifact. The new procedure also gave rise to consistently linear functions for ischemic pain. Implications are raised for the measurement of pain as well as other psychological continua.