Interoceptive sensitivity

The individual-differences construct linking interoception to emotion and selfhood. Operationalized by the heartbeat-detection-task (Schandry 1981). In Seth (2013) it is the trait through which interoceptive precision is probed.

Findings assembled in Seth (2013)

• Right AIC activation and morphometry predict interoceptive sensitivity (Critchley et al. 2004), which in turn predicts emotional symptoms and susceptibility to anxiety.
• Lower interoceptive sensitivity → greater susceptibility to the rubber-hand-illusion and to malleable self–other boundaries (Tsakiris et al. 2011) — interpreted as lower precision-weighting of interoceptive prediction errors, so exteroceptive cues dominate self-model updating.
• Cardiac timing modulates memory for words as a function of interoceptive sensitivity and metacognition (Garfinkel et al. 2013).

Interpretive note

Within interoceptive-inference, interoceptive sensitivity is not merely “how good your visceral sense organ is” but reflects the precision the system assigns to interoceptive prediction errors — a Bayesian-weight reading rather than a pure signal-fidelity reading. See the terminology caution in the frontmatter: modern usage (Garfinkel’s 2x2) distinguishes accuracy vs sensibility vs awareness, distinctions this 2013-vintage usage predates.

A further wrinkle: sensitivity/attention ≠ accuracy

Farb et al. (2015) highlight a finding that complicates any simple reading of “interoceptive sensitivity”: experienced meditators, despite strong interoceptive attention tendencies, do not show superior heartbeat-detection accuracy (Khalsa et al. 2008; Parkin et al. 2013). This is a central motivation for their expanded interoceptive-taxonomy, and is tracked as an open empirical question at does-mindfulness-enhance-interoceptive-accuracy.