Interoception, alexithymia, and motor congruency: Psychological drivers of body ownership in virtual reality.
Sarune Savickaite, Mitra Gupta, Dharshini Kannan
Perception May 13, 2026 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1177/03010066261447828 via PubMed
Summary
People with alexithymia, a trait involving difficulty identifying and describing emotions, tend to have poorer interoception—the ability to perceive internal bodily signals. In an immersive virtual reality experiment, motor synchrony between real and virtual movements increased feelings of body ownership. A trend suggested that those with higher interoceptive accuracy felt stronger body ownership when movements were aligned. Due to the small sample of 26 participants and use of only one measure of interoception, results are preliminary and need replication.
Study at a glance
| Design | observational cohort |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 26 |
| Population | adult participants in immersive virtual reality |
| Key finding | Alexithymia was negatively related to interoception, motor synchrony increased body ownership, and interoceptive accuracy showed a trend-level positive association with body ownership when movements were aligned. |
Abstract
Alexithymia, a personality trait marked by difficulty in identifying and describing emotions, is associated with differences in interoception - the ability to perceive and interpret internal bodily signals. Interoception plays a key role in forming a coherent sense of self and contributes to body ownership, the feeling that one's body belongs to oneself. This study explored how interoception and alexithymia influence body ownership in immersive virtual reality, particularly under conditions of motor cue congruency. Findings revealed a negative relationship between alexithymia and interoception, and a positive effect of motor synchrony on body ownership. Interoceptive accuracy (assessed via the heartbeat counting task) showed a trend-level positive association with body ownership when virtual and physical movements were aligned. Given the modest sample size (N = 26) and reliance on a single cardiac interoceptive measure, findings should be considered preliminary and warrant replication in larger, multi-method studies.