The interplay of interoceptive accuracy, facets of interoceptive sensibility, and trait anxiety: A network analysis

Interoception is the sense of the body's physiological state. Both the ability to accurately perceive bodily signals, and the self-reported sensibility for the body were assumed to be reciprocally associated with negative affect. Up to now, the specific interplay between dimensions of interoception and negative affect remains largely unknown. We investigated the interplay of cardioceptive accuracy assessed by a heartbeat tracking task, facets of interoceptive sensibility as measured by the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness, and trait anxiety as measured by the trait version of the State-Trait-Anxiety inventory across two studies (n = 243) using a network analytic approach. The resulting network structure suggested a relationship between interoceptive sensibility and trait anxiety through the tendency to evaluate one's own body as trustworthy. Interoceptive accuracy showed no considerable associations to other variables. The findings question the relevance of cardiac interoceptive accuracy for trait anxiety in healthy populations