Follow your heart if you can: A mismatch of interoceptive awareness and interoceptive accuracy

Interoception plays an important role in how people perceive signals from their own body. Although there have been many different tasks to measure people’s interoceptive ability, only recently the parameters involved have been better understood and complemented through the development of the Heart Rate Discrimination Task (HRD(T)). The present research focuses on whether subjective beliefs about interoceptive abilities are related to interoceptive bias and/or precision (as measured with HRD-task). Additionally, this thesis investigates whether these beliefs moderate bias or precision in individuals with anxiety symptoms or certain exercise habits. Results of the HRDT, introduced by Legrand, are analysed to see if they are replicated in the current study. In a sample of n=69, group-level bias and slope estimates were similar within our sample and in that of Legrand’s research. In addition, four hypotheses were tested of which no Null Hypotheses could be rejected. Interoceptive...Show moreInteroception plays an important role in how people perceive signals from their own body. Although there have been many different tasks to measure people’s interoceptive ability, only recently the parameters involved have been better understood and complemented through the development of the Heart Rate Discrimination Task (HRD(T)). The present research focuses on whether subjective beliefs about interoceptive abilities are related to interoceptive bias and/or precision (as measured with HRD-task). Additionally, this thesis investigates whether these beliefs moderate bias or precision in individuals with anxiety symptoms or certain exercise habits. Results of the HRDT, introduced by Legrand, are analysed to see if they are replicated in the current study. In a sample of n=69, group-level bias and slope estimates were similar within our sample and in that of Legrand’s research. In addition, four hypotheses were tested of which no Null Hypotheses could be rejected. Interoceptive accuracy was put in relation to interoceptive awareness (measured by the MAIA-II), anxiety (DASS-II) and exercise habits. Statistical Analyses showed no clear relations leading to uncertainty regarding the impact of a person’s subjective belief about their interoception on their objectively measured accuracy. Furthermore, only 22 of the sample showed moderate to extremely severe anxiety, this group did not moderate the relation between MAIA-II and HRD and was also not influenced by exercise. Exploratory analysis showed a correlation of the MAIA subscale “Not Worrying” with anxiety as well as “Attention Regulation” with exercise habits. These results call for further research regarding time distance between subjective interoceptive awareness (IA) and objective accuracy during a task. Similar procedures should be conducted using larger sample sizes, ideally from clinically screened populations, as part of a more focused study to avoid confounding variables such as fatigue and noise distraction. At this current time no further conclusions can be drawn regarding IA and task influence as well as the influence of anxiety and exercise on it though limitations as well as implications are discussed.Show less

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Follow your heart if you can: A mismatch of interoceptive awareness and interoceptive accuracy