Interoceptive Awareness Is Negatively Related to the Exteroceptive Manipulation of Bodily Self-Location.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2020 Robin Bekrater-Bodmann, Ruben T Azevedo, Vivien Ainley et al. 25 citations
The perception of being located inside one's own body (bodily self-location) can be altered by manipulating external sensory information, such as viewing the body from a third-person perspective and receiving synchronous touches. This study tested whether interoception—the processing of internal bodily signals—affects this malleability. Participants experienced stronger out-of-body sensations when viewing their body from a third-person perspective with synchronous visuotactile stimulation. Higher meta-cognitive interoceptive awareness (how well one monitors internal signals) was specifically linked to less malleability of bodily self-location. The results suggest that stable self-location depends on an interaction between external sensory input and higher-order interoceptive abilities, with implications for understanding disorders involving disturbed body perception.