Cardiac Interoceptive Accuracy: An Empirical Comparison of Three Ability Measures

There are several measures used to assess one's ability to perceive their heartbeat (cardiac interoceptive accuracy). These can be categorized into two main task types: tracking (e.g., motor tracking, heartbeat counting) and discrimination (e.g., two- and multi-interval). The recently developed cardiovascular signal detection task (cvSDT) combines the advantages of heartbeat counting and multi-interval discrimination tasks. It is an open question of how the three tasks relate to each other. This study compares all three methods in a sample of young adults (n = 73, 66% female). Efforts were made to identify heartbeat perceivers. Expectation and confidence ratings about perceived performance and interoception questionnaires were also administered. We found a relation between tracking and cvSDT(ρ = 0.401, p < 0.001); the multi-interval task was unrelated to both other task types (tracking: ρ = -0.103, p = 0.398; cvSDT: ρ = -0.103, p = 0.398). Multiple linear regression analyses (with the control of resting heart rate, body fat percentage, and sex) confirmed these results. 27.4% of the sample were heartbeat perceivers according to the heartbeat counting task, 28.8% according to the multi-interval discrimination task, and 12.3% according to the cvSDT. There was only one heartbeat perceiver according to all three tasks. Among questionnaires and tasks, only one connection was revealed: the Body Awareness Questionnaire related to the bias in cvSDT (ρ = -0.283*, p < 0.05). In summary, the three tasks likely assess partly different abilities. The investigation of expectation and confidence also supports this assumption. When choosing the method of cardiac interoception, characteristics should be considered to fit the research question.