Actions of a shaken heart: Interoception interacts with action processing

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Psychology

Background:

• Interoception, the sense of the body's internal state, plays a crucial role in cognitive processes.
• Predictive coding frameworks suggest that the brain constantly generates predictions about sensory input, including bodily signals.
• Understanding how bodily arousal influences action processing is vital for explaining embodied cognition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the modulatory influence of unconscious bodily arousal on motor-related embodied information.
• To examine the interaction between interoceptive prediction error and event-related potentials (ERPs) in action-effect processing.
• To explore how synchronous versus false auditory cardiac feedback affects neural responses during self-initiated actions.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed a task involving self-initiated or externally-triggered sounds.
• Auditory cardiac feedback was manipulated to be either synchronous or false.
• Event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically N1, P2, and P3 components, were recorded and analyzed.

Main Results:

• The interaction between interoceptive manipulation and action-effect processing modulated the frontal P3 response.
• Synchronous cardiac feedback enhanced the P3 response to self-initiated tones.
• False cardiac feedback reversed the frontal cortical response, while N1 and P2 components were affected by interoception alone.

Conclusions:

• Findings support theoretical accounts of interoception and action processing within a predictive coding framework.
• The study highlights the role of interoceptive prediction error in modulating higher stages of action processing.
• Bodily arousal significantly influences the neural mechanisms underlying the perception of self-initiated actions and their consequences.