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Category: Project

Description: Past studies primarily examine how behavioral accuracy in detecting interoceptive signals (interoceptive ability) relates to emotion, with less work examining self-reported interoceptive facets such as the self-characterizations of one’s interoceptive abilities (interoceptive sensibility) or evaluative beliefs about the value vs. danger of interoceptive signals (interoceptive beliefs). However, existing studies tend to be small and rarely examine physiological reactivity, behavioral, and self-reported dimensions of interoception together in the same sample. As such, it remains unclear whether and how much individual differences in interoceptive facets uniquely and in interaction with physiology may matter in relation to emotional experience. Herein, 250 healthy young adults completed a laboratory visit with a heartbeat detection task (assessing interoceptive ability) and questionnaire measures of interoceptive sensibility and beliefs. At a follow-up session, 227 participants returned to undergo an acute psychosocial stressor with reactivity measures of physiological arousal (pre-ejection period, heart rate variability). Immediately after the stressor, individuals self-reported their emotions.