An Embodied Cognition Perspective on the Role of Interoception in the Development of the Minimal Self.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2021 Lisa Musculus, Markus R Tünte, Markus Raab et al. 27 citations
Interoception, the sense of the internal state of the body, is a crucial but often overlooked component of the minimal self—the basic sense of being a subject. This perspective extends the embodiment account of interoceptive inference to explain how the minimal self develops in humans. It reviews major theories linking interoception to the minimal self and argues for a bidirectional relationship between motor and interoceptive states that jointly shape this development. The authors present empirical findings on interoception during development and offer testable theoretical predictions, aiming to provide a comprehensive view of the mechanisms underlying the minimal self.