Sensory and affective aspects of the perception of respiratory resistance

Perception of airway resistance has a sensory and an affective aspect, i.e., perceived resistance and unpleasantness, respectively. The current study aimed to shed more light on the relationship of these aspects, as well as their malleability to trait-like aspects of body awareness. In a laboratory study, 71 young participants completed two respiratory resistive load discrimination tasks relying on sensory and affective evaluation, respectively, and filled out questionnaires assessing somatosensory amplification, anxiety sensitivity, somatic symptoms distress, and breath awareness. Frequentist and Bayesian statistical analysis revealed no differences in discrimination accuracy with respect to the sensory and affective aspect of perceived resistance. Psychological traits were not associated with accuracy scores. In conclusion, affective evaluation of respiratory load is as accurate as sensory evaluation. Neither sensory not affective accuracy is influenced by various aspects of body awareness.