Selective attention and response inhibition alter phase-dependent cardiac slowing

Feeling in Control: The Role of Cardiac Timing in the Sense of Agency

The sense of agency describes the experience of controlling one’s body to cause desired effects in the world. We explored whether this is influenced by interoceptive processes. Specifically, we investigated whether the sense of agency changes depending on where, in the cardiac cycle (systole or diastole), the action was executed and where the outcome of the action occurred. In two experiments, participants completed decision-making task to win/lose money. Explicit (ratings of control) and implicit (temporal judgement) measures of agency were differentially affected by cardiovascular state. Implicit agency scores were affected by the cardiac phase at the point of action execution. Explicit ratings of control were affected by the type of (free vs. instructed) and by outcome valence (win vs. lose). The time of the action was uniformly distributed across the cardiac cycle. These results show interoceptive impact on agency, but that cardiac cycle may affect explicit and implicit agency differently.

Effects of Mood States and Anxiety as Induced by the Video-Recorded Stroop Color-Word Interference Test in Simple Response Time Tasks on Reaction Time and Movement Time

Mood states and anxiety might alter performance in complex tasks whereas in more simple tasks such as stimulus-response, high anxiety could provoke bias in mechanisms of attention leading to better performances. We investigated the effects of anxiety, tension, and fatigue induced by the video-recorded Stroop Color-Word Interference Test on either reaction or movement time. 61 subjects performed a visual and an auditory response-time test in Control and Anxiogenic conditions during which heart rate was measured. Tension and anxiety states were assessed using self-evaluation. Analysis showed auditory response time was improved for both reaction and movement times in the Anxiogenic condition. These data suggest that the increased attention underlying anxiety and mood responses could have favored auditory response time by leading subjects to process stimuli more actively. In addition, state-anxiety and tension could have influenced muscular tension, enhancing the movement time in the auditory task.

Electrophysiological evidence of intuition: part 1. The surprising role of the heart

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to contribute to a scientific understanding of intuition, a process by which information normally outside the range of conscious awareness is perceived by the psychophysiological systems. The first objective, presented in two empirical papers (Part 1 and Part 2), was to replicate and extend the results of previous experiments demonstrating that the body can respond to an emotionally arousing stimulus seconds before it is actually experienced. The second objective, to be presented in a third paper (Part 3), is to develop a theory that explains how the body receives and processes information involved in intuitive perception.

DESIGN

The study used a counterbalanced crossover design, in which 30 calm and 15 emotionally arousing pictures were presented to 26 participants under two experimental conditions: a baseline condition of normal psychophysiologic function and a condition of physiological coherence. Primary measures included: skin conductance; the electroencephalogram (EEG), from which cortical event-related potentials and heartbeat-evoked potentials were derived; and the electrocardiogram (ECG), from which cardiac decelerations/accelerations were derived. These measures were used to investigate where and when in the brain and body intuitive information is processed.

RESULTS

The study's results are presented in two parts. The main findings in relation to the heart's role in intuitive perception presented here are: (1) surprisingly, the heart appears to receive and respond to intuitive information; (2) a significantly greater heart rate deceleration occurred prior to future emotional stimuli compared to calm stimuli; (3) there were significant gender differences in the processing of prestimulus information. Part 2 will present results indicating where in the brain intuitive information is processed and data showing that prestimulus information from the heart is communicated to the brain. It also presents evidence that females are more attuned to intuitive information from the heart.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, we have independently replicated and extended previous research documenting prestimulus responses. It appears that the heart is involved in the processing and decoding of intuitive information. Once the prestimulus information is received in the psychophysiologic systems, it appears to be processed in the same way as conventional sensory input. This study presents compelling evidence that the body's perceptual apparatus is continuously scanning the future. To account for the results presented in Parts 1 and 2, Part 3 will develop a theory based on holographic principles explaining how intuitive perception accesses a field of energy into which information about future events is spectrally enfolded.