Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Feb;77(2):223-229.
doi: 10.1177/17470218231172725. Epub 2023 May 9.

Interoception: Where do we go from here?

Jennifer Murphy  1
Affiliations

Interoception: Where do we go from here?

Jennifer Murphy. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2024 Feb.

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a significant rise in interest in interoception, the processing of internal bodily signals. This interest has been coupled by increased concerns regarding the measurement and conceptualisation of interoception. Focusing on cardiac interoceptive accuracy, I outline what I believe to be the most pressing issues in the field of interoception-specifically the continued reliance on the heartbeat counting task. I then provide an overview of what I believe to be more general limitations concerning how we measure and conceptualise individual differences in interoception and suggestions for a way forward. Specifically, I believe that by moving beyond single measurements, establishing optimal levels of interoceptive accuracy, and refocusing from accuracy to propensity, we may be able to uncover the real-life relevance of interoceptive abilities.

Keywords: Interoception; body perception; interoceptive accuracy; interoceptive awareness.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Dr Murphy has completed paid consultancy work for Zavfit and the Ripple Effect for work on mental health and wellbeing.

References

    1. Adams K. L., Edwards A., Peart C., Ellett L., Mendes I., Bird G., Murphy J. (2022). The association between anxiety and cardiac interoceptive accuracy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 140, Article 104754. - PubMed
    1. Ainley V., Tsakiris M., Pollatos O., Schulz A., Herbert B. M. (2020). Comment on “Zamariola et al. (2018), Interoceptive Accuracy Scores are Problematic: Evidence from Simple Bivariate Correlations”—The empirical data base, the conceptual reasoning and the analysis behind this statement are misconceived and do not support the authors’ conclusions. Biological Psychology, 152, Article 107870. - PubMed
    1. Brener J., Kluvitse C. (1988). Heartbeat detection: Judgments of the simultaneity of external stimuli and heartbeats. Psychophysiology, 25(5), 554–561. - PubMed
    1. Brener J., Liu X., Ring C. (1993). A method of constant stimuli for examining heartbeat detection: Comparison with the Brener-Kluvitse and Whitehead methods. Psychophysiology, 30(6), 657–665. - PubMed
    1. Brener J., Ring C. (2016). Towards a psychophysics of interoceptive processes: The measurement of heartbeat detection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1708), Article 20160015. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources