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Azevedo RT, von Mohr M, Tsakiris M. From the Viscera to First Impressions: Phase-Dependent Cardio-Visual Signals Bias the Perceived Trustworthiness of Faces. Psychol Sci 2023; 34:120-131. [PMID: 36322944 DOI: 10.1177/09567976221131519] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
When we see new people, we rapidly form first impressions. Whereas past research has focused on the role of morphological or emotional cues, we asked whether transient visceral states bias the impressions we form. Across three studies (N = 94 university students), we investigated how fluctuations of bodily states, driven by the interoceptive impact of cardiac signals, influence the perceived trustworthiness of faces. Participants less often chose faces presented in synchrony with their own cardiac systole as more trustworthy than faces presented out of synchrony. Participants also explicitly judged faces presented in synchrony with their cardiac systole as less trustworthy. Finally, the presentation of faces in synchrony with participants' cardiac diastole did not modulate participants' perceptions of the faces' trustworthiness, suggesting that the systolic phase is necessary for such interoceptive effects. These findings highlight the role of phasic interoceptive information in the processing of social information and provide a mechanistic account of the role of visceroception for social perception.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mariana von Mohr
- Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London.,Centre for the Politics of Feelings, School of Advanced Study, University of London
| | - Manos Tsakiris
- Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London.,Centre for the Politics of Feelings, School of Advanced Study, University of London
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2
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Banerjee M, Hegde S, Thippeswamy H, Kulkarni GB, Rao N. In search of the 'self': Holistic rehabilitation in restoring cognition and recovering the 'self' following traumatic brain injury: A case report. NeuroRehabilitation 2021; 48:231-242. [PMID: 33664160 DOI: 10.3233/nre-208017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Following mild-moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI), an individual experiences a range of emotional changes. It is often difficult for the patient to reconcile with their post-injury persona, and the memory of pre-injury personhood is particularly painful. Insight into one's cognitive deficits subsequent to injury can lead to an existential crisis and a sense of loss, including loss of self. OBJECTIVE Restoration of cognitive functions and reconciliation with loss of pre-traumatic personhood employing a holistic method of neuropsychological rehabilitation in a patient suffering from TBI. METHODS Ms. K.S, a 25-year-old female, presented with emotional disturbances following TBI. She reported both retrograde and anterograde amnesia. A multidimensional holistic rehabilitation was planned. Treatment addressed cognitive deficits through the basic functions approach. Cognitive behavioural methods for emotional regulation like diary writing helped reduce irritability and anger outbursts. Use of social media created new modes of memory activation and interactions. Compensatory strategies were used to recover lost skills, music-based attention training helped foster an individualised approach to the sense of one's body and self. RESULTS As a result of these differing strategies, changes were reflected in neuro-psychological tests, depression score and the patient's self-evaluation. This helped generate a coherent self-narrative. CONCLUSION Treatment challenges in such cases are increased due to patient's actual deficits caused by neuronal/biochemical changes. Innovative and multi-pronged rehabilitation strategies which involve everyday activities provided an answer to some of these problems. This method of rehabilitation may provide an optimistic context for future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meenakshi Banerjee
- Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Centre, Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, India
| | - Shantala Hegde
- Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Centre, Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, India.,Associate Professor and Wellcome DBT India Alliance Intermediate Fellow, Clinical Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuro Sciences Center, Music Cognition Laboratory, Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, India.,Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, India
| | - Harish Thippeswamy
- Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, India
| | - Girish B Kulkarni
- Department of Neurology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, India
| | - Narasinga Rao
- Department of Surgery, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, India
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Tsakiris M, Vehar N, Tucciarelli R. Visceral politics: a theoretical and empirical proof of concept. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200142. [PMID: 33612001 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0142] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
While the study of affect and emotion has a long history in psychological sciences and neuroscience, the very question of how visceral states have come to the forefront of politics remains poorly understood. The concept of visceral politics captures how the physiological nature of our engagement with the social world influences how we make decisions, just as socio-political forces recruit our physiology to influence our socio-political behaviour. This line of research attempts to bridge the psychophysiological mechanisms that are responsible for our affective states with the historical socio-cultural context in which such states are experienced. We review findings and hypotheses at the intersections of life sciences, social sciences and humanities to shed light on how and why people come to experience such emotions in politics and what if any are their behavioural consequences. To answer these questions, we provide insights from predictive coding accounts of interoception and emotion and a proof of concept experiment to highlight the role of visceral states in political behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue 'The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Manos Tsakiris
- The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK.,Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, UK.,Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
| | - Neza Vehar
- The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK
| | - Raffaele Tucciarelli
- The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK
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Wearing your heart on your screen: Investigating congruency-effects in autonomic responses and their role in interoceptive processing during biofeedback. Cognition 2019; 194:104053. [PMID: 31525646 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104053] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2019] [Revised: 08/06/2019] [Accepted: 08/12/2019] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
The experience of one's embodied sense of self is dependent on the integration of signals originating both from within and outwith one's body. During the processing and integration of these signals, the bodily self must maintain a fine balance between stability and malleability. Here we investigate the potential role of autonomic responses in interoceptive processing and their contribution to the stability of the bodily self. Using a biofeedback paradigm, we manipulated the congruency of cardiac signals across two hierarchical levels: (i) the low-level congruency between a visual feedback and participant's own cardiac signal and (ii) the high-level congruency between the participants' beliefs about the identity of the cardiac feedback and its true identity. We measured the effects of these manipulations on high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), a selective index of phasic vagal cardiac control. In Experiment 1, HF-HRV was sensitive to low-level congruency, independently of whether participants attempted to regulate or simply attend to the biofeedback. Experiment 2 revealed a higher-level congruency effect, as participants' prior veridical beliefs increased HF-HRV while when false they decreased HF-HRV. Our results demonstrate that autonomic changes in HF-HRV are sensitive to congruencies across multiple hierarchical levels. Our findings have important theoretical implications for predictive coding models of the self as they pave the way for a more direct way to track the subtle changes in the co-processing of the internal and external milieus.
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Sel A, Azevedo RT, Tsakiris M. Heartfelt Self: Cardio-Visual Integration Affects Self-Face Recognition and Interoceptive Cortical Processing. Cereb Cortex 2018; 27:5144-5155. [PMID: 28334126 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhw296] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2016] [Accepted: 09/06/2016] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
The sense of body-ownership relies on the representation of both interoceptive and exteroceptive signals coming from one's body. However, it remains unknown how the integration of bodily signals coming from "outside" and "inside" the body is instantiated in the brain. Here, we used a modified version of the Enfacement Illusion to investigate whether the integration of visual and cardiac information can alter self-face recognition (Experiment 1) and neural responses to heartbeats (Experiment 2). We projected a pulsing shade, that was synchronous or asynchronous with the participant's heartbeat, onto a picture depicting the participant's face morphed with the face of an unfamiliar other. Results revealed that synchronous (vs. asynchronous) cardio-visual stimulation led to increased self-identification with the other's face (Experiment 1), while during stimulation, synchronicity modulated the amplitude of the Heartbeat Evoked Potential, an electrophysiological index of cortical interoceptive processing (Experiment 2). Importantly, the magnitude of the illusion-related effects was dependent on, and increased linearly, with the participants' Interoceptive Accuracy. These results provide the first direct neural evidence for the integration of interoceptive and exteroceptive signals in bodily self-awareness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alejandra Sel
- Lab of Action & Body, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, London, UK.,Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, OX1 3UD, Oxford, UK
| | - Ruben T Azevedo
- Lab of Action & Body, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University London, Egham, SurreyTW20 0EX, London, UK
| | - Manos Tsakiris
- Lab of Action & Body, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, London, UK.,The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB, UK
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Christensen JF. Pleasure junkies all around! Why it matters and why 'the arts' might be the answer: a biopsychological perspective. Proc Biol Sci 2018; 284:rspb.2016.2837. [PMID: 28469018 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2837] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2016] [Accepted: 03/10/2017] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Today's society is pleasure seeking. We expect to obtain pleasurable experiences fast and easily. We are used to hyper-palatable foods and drinks, and we can get pornography, games and gadgets whenever we want them. THE PROBLEM with this type of pleasure-maximizing choice behaviour we may be turning ourselves into mindless pleasure junkies, handing over our free will for the next dopamine shoot. Pleasure-only activities are fun. In excess, however, such activities might have negative effects on our biopsychological health: they provoke a change in the neural mechanisms underlying choice behaviour. Choice behaviour becomes biased towards short-term pleasure-maximizing goals, just as in the addicted brain (modulated by the amygdala, posterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex' (VMPFC), striatum, nucleus accumbens; 'A-system') and away from long-term prosperity and general well-being maximizing objectives (normally ensured by the insula, anterior VMPFC, hippocampus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC); 'I-system'). This paper outlines, first, what 'pleasure' is and what 'pleasure-only' activities are (e.g. social media engagement, hyper-palatable eating). Second, an account is given of the type of action that might aid to maintain the neural systems underlying choice behaviour balanced. Finally, it is proposed that engagement with the arts might be an activity with the potential to foster healthy choice behaviour-and not be just for pleasure. The evidence in this rather new field of research is still piecemeal and inconclusive. This review aims to motivate targeted research in this domain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia F Christensen
- Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of London, London, UK .,Autism Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of London, London, UK
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7
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Christensen JF, Gaigg SB, Calvo-Merino B. I can feel my heartbeat: Dancers have increased interoceptive accuracy. Psychophysiology 2017; 55. [DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2016] [Revised: 08/03/2017] [Accepted: 08/06/2017] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Julia F. Christensen
- Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology; City, University of London; London UK
- Autism Research Group, Department of Psychology; City, University of London; London UK
| | - Sebastian B. Gaigg
- Autism Research Group, Department of Psychology; City, University of London; London UK
| | - Beatriz Calvo-Merino
- Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology; City, University of London; London UK
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Riva G. The neuroscience of body memory: From the self through the space to the others. Cortex 2017; 104:241-260. [PMID: 28826604 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.07.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 92] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2017] [Revised: 05/30/2017] [Accepted: 07/19/2017] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Our experience of the body is not direct; rather, it is mediated by perceptual information, influenced by internal information, and recalibrated through stored implicit and explicit body representation (body memory). This paper presents an overview of the current investigations related to body memory by bringing together recent studies from neuropsychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary and cognitive psychology. To do so, in the paper, I explore the origin of representations of human body to elucidate their developmental process and, in particular, their relationship with more explicit concepts of self. First, it is suggested that our bodily experience is constructed from early development through the continuous integration of sensory and cultural data from six different representations of the body, i.e., the Sentient Body (Minimal Selfhood), the Spatial Body (Self Location), the Active Body (Agency), the Personal Body (Whole Body Ownership - Me); the Objectified Body (Objectified Self - Mine), and the Social Body (Body Satisfaction - Ideal Me). Then, it is suggested that these six representations can be combined in a coherent supramodal representation, i.e. the "body matrix", through a predictive, multisensory processing activated by central, top-down, attentional processes. From an evolutionary perspective, the main goal of the body matrix is to allow the self to protect and extend its boundaries at both the homeostatic and psychological levels. From one perspective, the self extends its boundaries (peripersonal space) through the enactment and recognition of motor schemas. From another perspective, the body matrix, by defining the boundaries of the body, also defines where the self is present, i.e., in the body that is processed by the body matrix as the most likely to be its one, and in the space surrounding it. In the paper I also introduce and discuss the concept of "embodied medicine": the use of advanced technology for altering the body matrix with the goal of improving our health and well-being.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giuseppe Riva
- Centro Studi e Ricerche di Psicologia Della Comunicazione, Università Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy; Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy.
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Murphy J, Brewer R, Catmur C, Bird G. Interoception and psychopathology: A developmental neuroscience perspective. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2017; 23:45-56. [PMID: 28081519 PMCID: PMC6987654 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2016.12.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 194] [Impact Index Per Article: 27.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2016] [Revised: 12/19/2016] [Accepted: 12/19/2016] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Interoception refers to the perception of the physiological condition of the body, including hunger, temperature, and heart rate. There is a growing appreciation that interoception is integral to higher-order cognition. Indeed, existing research indicates an association between low interoceptive sensitivity and alexithymia (a difficulty identifying one's own emotion), underscoring the link between bodily and emotional awareness. Despite this appreciation, the developmental trajectory of interoception across the lifespan remains under-researched, with clear gaps in our understanding. This qualitative review and opinion paper provides a brief overview of interoception, discussing its relevance for developmental psychopathology, and highlighting measurement issues, before surveying the available work on interoception across four stages of development: infancy, childhood, adolescence and late adulthood. Where gaps in the literature addressing the development of interoception exist, we draw upon the association between alexithymia and interoception, using alexithymia as a possible marker of atypical interoception. Evidence indicates that interoceptive ability varies across development, and that this variance correlates with established age-related changes in cognition and with risk periods for the development of psychopathology. We suggest a theory within which atypical interoception underlies the onset of psychopathology and risky behaviour in adolescence, and the decreased socio-emotional competence observed in late adulthood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer Murphy
- MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
| | - Rebecca Brewer
- MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK; School of Psychology, The University of East London, London, UK
| | - Caroline Catmur
- MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Geoffrey Bird
- MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL, London, UK; Dept of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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