Cardiac and Proprioceptive Accuracy Are Not Related to Body Awareness, Perceived Body Competence, and Affect

Interoception in the broader sense refers to the perception of internal states, including the perception of the actual state of the internal organs (visceroception) and the motor system (proprioception). Dimensions of interoception include (1) interoceptive accuracy, i.e., the ability to sense internal changes assessed with behavioral tests, (2) confidence rating with respect to perceived performance in an actual behavioral test, and (3) interoceptive sensibility, i.e., the self-reported generalized ability to perceive body changes. The relationship between dimension of cardioceptive and proprioceptive modalities and their association with affect are scarcely studied. In the present study, undergraduate students (N = 105, 53 males, age: 21.0 ± 1.87 years) filled out questionnaires assessing positive and negative affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule), interoceptive sensibility (Body Awareness Questionnaire), and body competence (Body Competence Scale of the Body Consciousness Questionnaire). Following this, they completed a behavioral task assessing cardioceptive accuracy (the mental heartbeat tracking task by Schandry) and two tasks assessing proprioceptive accuracy with respect to the tension of arm flexor muscles (weight discrimination task) and the angular position of the elbow joint (joint position reproduction task). Confidence ratings were measured with visual analog scales after the tasks. With the exception of a weak association between cardioceptive accuracy and the respective confidence rating, no associations between and within modalities were found with respect to various dimensions of interoception. Further, the interoceptive dimensions were not associated with state and trait positive and negative affect and perceived body competence. In summary, interoceptive accuracy scores do not substantially contribute to conscious representations of cardioceptive and proprioceptive ability. Within our data, non-pathological affective states (PANAS) are not associated with the major dimensions of interoception for the cardiac and proprioceptive modalities.