Abstract
Interoception (perception of one’s own physiological state) has been suggested to underpin social cognition, although the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. The current study aimed to elucidate the relationship between interoception and two factors underlying social cognition: self-other boundary and sensitivity to social cues. We measured performance in a heartbeat perception task as an index of interoceptive accuracy (IAc), the frequency of spontaneous facial mimicry (SFM) as an index of self-other boundary, and the degree of the effect of eye contact on SFM (difference in SFM between conditions in which models’ eyes were directed to and averted from participants) as an index of social-cue sensitivity, and tested correlations among these measures. The results revealed that IAc and SFM were positively correlated only in the direct gaze condition. The extent of the effect of eye contact on SFM (difference in frequency between direct vs. averted conditions) was positively correlated with IAc. These overall findings were also observed in separate analyses of male and female participant groups, supporting the robustness of the findings. The results suggest that interoception is related to sensitivity to social cues, and may also be related to the self-other boundary with modulation by social context.
Highlights
Interoception has been suggested to underpin social cognition, the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear
In the direct-gaze condition, a significant positive correlation was found between the performance of the heartbeat counting task (IAc) and the mean number of occurrences on spontaneous facial mimicry (SFM) (ρ (76) = 0.574, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.40, 0.71]; Fig. 2a), while the correlation was not significant in the averted condition (ρ (76) = 0.030, p = 0.794, 95% CI [− 0.19, 0.25]; Fig. 2b)
The present study examined whether and how the interoceptive accuracy (IAc, indexed by the performance of heartbeat counting task) is associated with the degree of self-other overlap/distinction and the sensitivity to socially relevant stimuli
Summary
Interoception (perception of one’s own physiological state) has been suggested to underpin social cognition, the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. Whether and how these functions are associated with interoception remain unclear Against this background, the present study investigated the relationship between interoceptive sensitivity and two factors underlying social cognition: the degree of selfother boundary (interpersonal overlap/distinction), and sensitivity to socially relevant signals. Sowden et al reported a similar finding, demonstrating that individuals with higher alexithymia traits (i.e., reduced emotional awareness, which is thought to be linked to lower interoception) exhibited a greater ability to inhibit imitation[22] These studies suggested that interoceptive sensitivity or ability is positively correlated with greater overlap between self and other. It is possible that previous findings reflect task-dependent factors[25,26] To avoid this issue, the present study focused on the phenomenon of spontaneous mimicry (task-independent contagion of body movement) to examine more implicit aspects of the self-other boundary and its relationship with interoception. We measured the frequency of SFM as an index of the degree of self-other boundary, and examined its correlation with interoception
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