Altered interoceptive processing in smokers: Evidence from the heartbeat tracking task

Neuroimaging evidence suggests that interoceptive processing might be altered in nicotine addiction, however this has not yet been confirmed with behavioral measures. Therefore, we investigated the perception of internal bodily states in smokers (n=49) and people who had never smoked (n=51), by measuring interoceptive accuracy (IAcc) and interoceptive sensibility (IS). IAcc was measured with a heartbeat tracking task and a heartbeat discrimination task. Performance on the heartbeat tracking task may be influenced by one's ability to estimate an elapsed time interval so this was controlled by also administering a time-estimation (TE) task. IS was measured using two sub-scales from the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA). All smokers completed the Revised Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND-R) to measure addiction severity. Non-smokers performed significantly better than smokers on the heartbeat tracking task. There were no significant group differences observed for the remaining variables. Furthermore, none of the variables predicted addiction severity. This is the first demonstration of behavioural differences in interoception between smokers and non-smokers

Mindfulness, Interoception, and the Body

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Editorial: Psychology and Neuropsychology of Perception, Action, and Cognition

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Turning body and self inside out: visualized heartbeats alter bodily self-consciousness and tactile perception

Prominent theories highlight the importance of bodily perception for self-consciousness, but it is currently not known whether bodily perception is based on interoceptive or exteroceptive signals or on integrated signals from these anatomically distinct systems. In the research reported here, we combined both types of signals by surreptitiously providing participants with visual exteroceptive information about their heartbeat: A real-time video image of a periodically illuminated silhouette outlined participants' (projected, "virtual") bodies and flashed in synchrony with their heartbeats. We investigated whether these "cardio-visual" signals could modulate bodily self-consciousness and tactile perception. We report two main findings. First, synchronous cardio-visual signals increased self-identification with and self-location toward the virtual body, and second, they altered the perception of tactile stimuli applied to participants' backs so that touch was mislocalized toward the virtual body. We argue that the integration of signals from the inside and the outside of the human body is a fundamental neurobiological process underlying self-consciousness

Interaction of spatial and temporal integration in global form processing

The mechanisms by which global structure is extracted from local orientation information are not well understood. Sensitivity to global structure can be investigated using coherence thresholds for detection of global forms of varying complexity, such as parallel and concentric arrays of oriented line elements. In this study, we investigated temporal integration in the detection of these forms and its interaction with spatial integration. We find that for concentric patterns, integration times drop as region size increases from 3 degrees to 10.9 degrees , while for parallel patterns, the reverse is true. The same spatiotemporal relationship was found for Glass patterns as for line element arrays. The two types of organization therefore show quite different spatiotemporal relations, supporting previous arguments that different types of neural mechanism underlie their detection

Seeing the body modulates audiotactile integration

Audiotactile integration has been studied using various experimental setups but so far crossmodal congruency effects (CCEs) have not been found for tactile targets paired with auditory distractors. In the present study we investigated whether audiotactile CCEs exist and, if so, whether these CCEs have similar characteristics to those found by previous authors with visual distractors. We measured audiotactile CCEs by attaching four vibrators to the backs of participants and presented auditory stimuli from four loudspeakers placed, in separate blocks, at different distances in front of or behind the participant's body. Participants discriminated the elevation of tactile stimuli while ignoring the auditory distractors. CCEs were found only when participants were provided with noninformative vision of their own body, as seen from behind via a camera and head-mounted display; they were absent when participants did not view their body. Furthermore, in contrast to visuotactile CCEs, audiotactile CCEs did not depend on whether the distractors were presented on the same or different side as the tactile targets. The present study provides the first demonstration of an audiotactile CCE: incongruent auditory distractors impaired performance on a tactile elevation discrimination task relative to performance with congruent distractors. We show that audiotactile CCEs differ from visuotactile CCEs as they do not appear to be as sensitive to the spatial relations between the distractors and the tactile stimuli. We also show that these CCEs are modulated by vision of the body

Differential human brain activation by vertical and horizontal global visual textures

Mid-level visual processes which integrate local orientation information for the detection of global structure can be investigated using global form stimuli of varying complexity. Several lines of evidence suggest that the identification of concentric and parallel organisations relies on different underlying neural substrates. The current study measured brain activation by concentric, horizontal parallel, and vertical parallel arrays of short line segments, compared to arrays of randomly oriented segments. Six subjects were scanned in a blocked design functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment. We compared percentage BOLD signal change during the concentric, horizontal and vertical blocks within early retinotopic areas, the fusiform face area and the lateral occipital complex. Unexpectedly, we found that vertical and horizontal parallel forms differentially activated visual cortical areas beyond V1, but in general, activations to concentric and parallel forms did not differ. Vertical patterns produced the highest percentage signal change overall and only area V3A showed a significant difference between concentric and parallel (horizontal) stimuli, with the former better activating this area. These data suggest that the difference in brain activation to vertical and horizontal forms arises at intermediate or global levels of visual representation since the differential activity was found in mid-level retinotopic areas V2 and V3 but not in V1. This may explain why earlier studies--using methods that emphasised responses to local orientation--did not discover this vertical-horizontal anisotropy

Translation and Validation of a Bahasa Malaysia (Malay) Version of the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA)

Objectives: The 32-item Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) is a widely-used measure of multidimensional interoception. In the present study, we examined the psychometric properties of a Bahasa Malaysia (Malay) translation of the MAIA. Methods: An online sample of 815 Malaysian Malays (women n = 403) completed a novel translation of the MAIA. Validated measures of trait mindfulness and self-esteem were also completed to facilitate a preliminary assessment of convergent validity. Results: Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the MAIA items reduced to a 19-item, 3-factor model. The 3-factor model was further tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) alongside the parent 8-factor model. Both models had good fit on some indices, but less-than-ideal fit on other indices. The 3-factor model evidenced comparatively better fit, with fit indices being adequate following modification. Multi-group CFA indicated both the 3-factor model and the 8-factor model had full strict invariance across sex. However, evidence for construct and convergent validity was mixed. Conclusions: Overall the 3-dimensional Malay MAIA was demonstrated to be both internally consistent and invariant across sex, but further evidence of construct and convergent validity is required. Issues that affect the dimensionality of MAIA scores in the present and extant work are discussed in conclusion

Are some interoceptive sensibility components more central than others? Using Item Pool Visualisation to understand the psychometric representation of interoception

Interoception refers to the processing of stimuli originating within the body and is widely considered a multidimensional construct. However, there remains a lack of consensus regarding the definition and measurement of the subjective, self-reported component, referred to here as interoceptive sensibility. As a contribution to knowledge on the topic, we sought to examine the construct commonality and distinguishability of seven self-report measures of interoceptive sensibility using Item Pool Visualisation (IPV), an illustrative method that locates item pools from within the same dataset and illustrates these in the form of nested radar charts. Adults from the United Kingdom (N = 802) completed seven measures of interoceptive sensibility, and the data were subjected to IPV. Results demonstrated that, of the included measures, the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-2 provided the closest and most precise measurement of the core interoceptive sensibility construct (i.e., core of the entire investigated item pool). The Body Awareness Questionnaire and the Private Body Consciousness Scale were also centrally located measures, while the Body Perception Questionnaire and the Body Responsiveness Scale appear to tap more distal aspects of the core construct. We discuss implications for interpreting complicated data patterns using measures of interoceptive sensibility and, more generally, for measuring the construct of interoceptive sensibility