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.
False physiological feedback—mismatches between perceived and actual bodily signals—can bias how people judge the emotional intensity of faces. Prior work using auditory feedback suggested that perceived changes in heart rate increase intensity ratings regardless of whether the feedback indicates a faster or slower heart rate, with the right anterior insula acting as a mismatch detector. This study used pulsatile somatosensory stimulation (vibration) at rates above, below, or matching participants' heart rate, or no stimulation, while they rated emotional faces during brain scanning. Feedback produced a bidirectional effect: intensity ratings increased over each 20-second stimulation block.