The Bodily Self
J. Verbe, Raphael H. Gautier, Marianne Latinus, Frédérique Bonnet‐brilhault, Frédéric Briend
Human Nature July 8, 2026 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1007/s12110-026-09526-z via OpenAlex
Summary
The mere presence of social cues, such as another person, reduces the ability to accurately perceive one's own heartbeat. In a virtual reality environment, 32 healthy adults performed a heartbeat counting task with and without social exteroceptive cues. Accuracy was significantly lower when social cues were present, suggesting that even minimal social presence can disrupt internal bodily awareness. This supports the idea that the sense of self is shaped by social context and may involve competition between attention to internal and external signals.
Study at a glance
| Design | experimental study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 32 |
| Population | neurologically healthy adults aged 19-45 |
| Key finding | Social exteroceptive cues significantly decreased cardiac interoceptive accuracy in a heartbeat counting task. |
Abstract
The embodied self emerges from dynamic interactions between internal bodily signals and external sensory inputs, including those of social origin. Interoception (the perception and interpretation of internal bodily states) plays a central role in bodily self-consciousness and social cognition. Although socially salient contexts have been shown to modulate interoceptive accuracy (IAcc), the influence of passive social presence remains largely unexplored. In this study, we examined how the social exteroception modulates cardiac interoceptive accuracy using a heartbeat counting task in a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). Neurologically healthy participants (N = 32; ages 19-45) completed the task under both social and non-social exteroceptive conditions. Results showed that the mere presence of social exteroceptive cues significantly decreased IAcc. These findings indicate that even minimal social cues can influence internal bodily awareness, supporting the view that the embodied self is inherently relational and dynamically influenced by its social environment. This effect may reflect attentional competition between interoceptive and exteroceptive processes, consistent with predictive coding and attentional switching models. By leveraging immersive virtual reality, we created ecologically valid yet precisely controlled social contexts, minimizing the confounds of real-life physiological coregulation. Beyond theoretical implications, this study raises methodological considerations regarding the potential influence of social context, including experimenter presence, on interoceptive performance, and may inform clinical research on mental health conditions characterized by altered interoceptive and social processing.