Knowing your own heart: Distinguishing interoceptive accuracy from interoceptive awareness

Interoception refers to the sensing of internal bodily changes. Interoception interacts with cognition and emotion, making measurement of individual differences in interoceptive ability broadly relevant to neuropsychology. However, inconsistency in how interoception is defined and quantified led to a three-dimensional model. Here, we provide empirical support for dissociation between dimensions of: (1) interoceptive accuracy (performance on objective behavioural tests of heartbeat detection), (2) interoceptive sensibility (self-evaluated assessment of subjective interoception, gauged using interviews/questionnaires) and (3) interoceptive awareness (metacognitive awareness of interoceptive accuracy, e.g.…

• DM
  Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation
• EA
  Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

  Awards: EP/G007543/1, EP/L005131/1, EP/G007543/1, EP/L005131/1
• ER
  European Research Council
• FI
  FP7 Information and Communication Technologies