Emotional processing and emotional memory are modulated by interoceptive awareness
- The ability to perceive interoceptive signals plays a central role in many theories of emotions. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between interoceptive awareness and the conscious processing and memory of emotional information. Heart-rate changes were recorded during baseline and affective picture presentation in two groups of participants, differing in cardiac awareness. After a 60-minute break, a recognition task was conducted. Statistical analyses revealed significantly stronger heart-rate deceleration to pleasant and unpleasant stimuli in participants with high interoceptive awareness. In the subsequent picture recognition task, participants with high interoceptive awareness demonstrated a superior recall of pleasant and unpleasant pictures, while no differences were found between interoceptive awareness groups for pictures of neutral content. Our results demonstrate a strong relationship between the perception of cardiac signals and both the processing as well as the recognition of emotional stimuli.The ability to perceive interoceptive signals plays a central role in many theories of emotions. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between interoceptive awareness and the conscious processing and memory of emotional information. Heart-rate changes were recorded during baseline and affective picture presentation in two groups of participants, differing in cardiac awareness. After a 60-minute break, a recognition task was conducted. Statistical analyses revealed significantly stronger heart-rate deceleration to pleasant and unpleasant stimuli in participants with high interoceptive awareness. In the subsequent picture recognition task, participants with high interoceptive awareness demonstrated a superior recall of pleasant and unpleasant pictures, while no differences were found between interoceptive awareness groups for pictures of neutral content. Our results demonstrate a strong relationship between the perception of cardiac signals and both the processing as well as the recognition of emotional stimuli. High interoceptive awareness was related to increased physiological responses to emotional stimuli and is therefore an important mediating variable when investigating cardiovascular reactivity both in healthy subjects as well as in clinical populations.…
Author details: | Olga Pollatos, Rainer Schandry |
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URL: | http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=journal&issn=0269-9931 |
ISSN: | 0269-9931 |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2008 |
Publication year: | 2008 |
Release date: | 2017/03/25 |
Source: | Cognition and emotion. - ISSN 0269-9931. - 22 (2008), 2, S. 272 - 287 |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Psychologie |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access |