Induced Interpretive Bias and Heartbeat Perception

Abstract. Recently, Garfinkel and Critchley (2013) proposed to distinguish between three facets of interoception: interoceptive sensibility, interoceptive accuracy, and interoceptive awareness. This pilot study investigated how these facets interrelate to each other and whether interoceptive awareness is related to the metacognitive awareness of memory performance. A sample of 24 healthy students completed a heartbeat perception task (HPT) and a memory task. Judgments of confidence were requested for each task. Participants filled in questionnaires assessing interoceptive sensibility, depression, anxiety, and socio-demographic characteristics. The three facets of interoception were found to be uncorrelated and interoceptive awareness was not related to metacognitive awareness of memory performance. Whereas memory performance was significantly related to metamemory awareness, interoceptive accuracy (HPT) and interoceptive awareness were not correlated. Results suggest that future research on interoception should assess all facets of interoception in order to capture the multifaceted quality of the construct.

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The effects of prolonged attentional bias training on mood and interpretive bias in social anxiety

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e512592013-356 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

B. Paulewicz ◽

A. Blaut ◽

A. Gronostaj

Keyword(s):

Social Anxiety ◽

Attentional Bias ◽

Interpretive Bias

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Perceptual insensitivity to the modulation of interoceptive signals in depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-81307-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ryan Smith ◽

◽

Justin S. Feinstein ◽

Rayus Kuplicki ◽

Katherine L. Forthman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Substance Use ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Substance Use Disorders ◽

Breath Hold ◽

Healthy Individuals ◽

Performance Improvements ◽

Heartbeat Perception ◽

Minimal Improvement ◽

Healthy Participants

AbstractThis study employed a series of heartbeat perception tasks to assess the hypothesis that cardiac interoceptive processing in individuals with depression/anxiety (N = 221), and substance use disorders (N = 136) is less flexible than that of healthy individuals (N = 53) in the context of physiological perturbation. Cardiac interoception was assessed via heartbeat tapping when: (1) guessing was allowed; (2) guessing was not allowed; and (3) experiencing an interoceptive perturbation (inspiratory breath hold) expected to amplify cardiac sensation. Healthy participants showed performance improvements across the three conditions, whereas those with depression/anxiety and/or substance use disorder showed minimal improvement. Machine learning analyses suggested that individual differences in these improvements were negatively related to anxiety sensitivity, but explained relatively little variance in performance. These results reveal a perceptual insensitivity to the modulation of interoceptive signals that was evident across several common psychiatric disorders, suggesting that interoceptive deficits in the realm of psychopathology manifest most prominently during states of homeostatic perturbation.

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Evidence toward the potential absence of relationship between temporal and spatial heartbeats perception

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-90334-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Betka Sophie ◽

Łukowska Marta ◽

Silva Marta ◽

King Joshua ◽

Garfinkel Sarah ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bayesian Statistics ◽

State Anxiety ◽

Discrimination Task ◽

Spatial Perception ◽

The Body ◽

Temporal Perception ◽

Heartbeat Perception ◽

Sampling Locations ◽

Spatial Domains ◽

Temporal And Spatial

AbstractMany interoceptive tasks (i.e. measuring the sensitivity to bodily signals) are based upon heartbeats perception. However, the temporal perception of heartbeats—when heartbeats are felt—varies among individuals. Moreover, the spatial perception of heartbeats—where on the body heartbeats are felt—has not been characterized in relation to temporal. This study used a multi-interval heartbeat discrimination task in which participants judged the timing of their own heartbeats in relation to external tones. The perception of heartbeats in both time and spatial domains, and relationship between these domains was investigated. Heartbeat perception occurred on average ~ 250 ms after the ECG R-wave, most frequently sampled from the left part of the chest. Participants’ confidence in discriminating the timing of heartbeats from external tones was maximal at 0 ms (tone played at R-wave). Higher confidence was related to reduced dispersion of sampling locations, but Bayesian statistics indicated the absence of relationship between temporal and spatial heartbeats perception. Finally, the spatial precision of heartbeat perception was related to state-anxiety scores, yet largely independent of cardiovascular parameters. This investigation of heartbeat perception provides fresh insights concerning interoceptive signals that contribute to emotion, cognition and behaviour.

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