Research library

Testing the independence of self-reported interoceptive accuracy and attention

Murphy and colleagues · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Across six studies, the authors built a 21-item questionnaire on how accurately people believe they sense signals from their body, such as hunger, heartbeat or the need to use the toilet. Scores were stable over a month and went with scores on an older questionnaire on the same theme, but were unrelated to how much attention people said they pay to their body. In two small studies, higher scores went with modestly better counting of one's own heartbeats. The authors read this as support for treating self-rated attention to the body and self-rated accuracy as separate traits.