Interoceptive Awareness

Interoception refers to the awareness of physical sensations that arise from within the body. Although there is no consensus on the exact definition of interoceptive awareness (IA), it generally refers to the perceived or actual ability of an individual to discern between internal bodily sensations. A refined definition was published in 2015 by Sarah Garfinkel and colleagues that quantifies IA as a “confidence-accuracy” correlation that represents the extent to which perceived ability to detect visceral changes can predict actual ability to detect bodily changes.

Pioneers such as William James who first proposed that an increased sensitivity to one’s visceral sensations leads to more intense emotional experiences have inspired clinical research of IA. Other psychophysical theories proposed that IA can bias cognitive processing, attention, and memory ...

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