Association between interoception and empathy: Evidence from heartbeat-evoked brain potential

Fukushima, Hirokata; Terasawa, Yuri; Umeda, Satoshi

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2010.10.015

Cited by 181 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 67 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…The relationship between empathy and interoceptive awareness has not yet been thoroughly investigated because it is not clear whether the observed peripheral responses affect subjective experiences of emotion. Fukushima et al (2011) and Ernst, Northoff, Boker, Seifritz, and Grimm (2012) attempted to resolve this issue. Both studies measured central nervous system activity during the presentation of emotional facial expressions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They found a negative correlation between the alexithymic trait and the activation of anterior insular cortex, suggesting that interoceptive deficits may lead to difficulties in describing and experiencing emotions. Fukushima, Terasawa, and Umeda (2011) revealed that experiencing the emotions of others enhanced responses on a neural index of interoceptive processing, which comprised a surface electroencephalographic pattern termed a heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP). The researchers also reported a close association between HEP amplitude and empathetic traits.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Interoceptive sensitivity predicts sensitivity to the emotions of others

Terasawa

Moriguchi

Tochizawa

et al. 2014

Cognition and Emotion

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145

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Some theories of emotion emphasise a close relationship between interoception and subjective experiences of emotion. In this study, we used facial expressions to examine whether interoceptive sensibility modulated emotional experience in a social context. Interoceptive sensibility was measured using the heartbeat detection task. To estimate individual emotional sensitivity, we made morphed photos that ranged between a neutral and an emotional facial expression (i.e., anger, sadness, disgust and happy). Recognition rates of particular emotions from these photos were calculated and considered as emotional sensitivity thresholds. Our results indicate that participants with accurate interoceptive awareness are sensitive to the emotions of others, especially for expressions of sadness and happy. We also found that false responses to sad faces were closely related with an individual's degree of social anxiety. These results suggest that interoceptive awareness modulates the intensity of the subjective experience of emotion and affects individual traits related to emotion processing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Interoceptive sensitivity predicts sensitivity to the emotions of others

Terasawa

Moriguchi

Tochizawa

et al. 2014

Cognition and Emotion

Self Cite

145

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“…The ability to tune into one's own somatosensory processes mirrors and seems to facilitate or prime one's ability to feel or sense the somatosensory experience of another [9]. This insight gives possible relevance to the importance of embodied attention as one base for the development of empathy and compassion.…”

Section: Key Pointsmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Recent research in neuroscience has suggested that visceral attunement, known as interoceptivity, activates the same brain circuits (e.g., within the insula cortex) as those of empathy [9,10]. Another way of saying this is that interoceptivity belongs to the same set of brain circuits required for empathy.…”

Section: Key Pointsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A heuristic model of enactive compassion

Halifax¹

2012

Current Opinion in Supportive &Amp; Palliative Care

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Compassion is in general seen as having two main components: the affective feeling of caring for one who is suffering and the motivation to relieve suffering. This definition of compassion might impose limitations and will, therefore, have consequences on how one trains compassion in clinicians and others. It is the author's premise that compassion is dispositionally enactive (the interactions between living organisms and their environments, i.e., the propensity toward perception-action in relation to one's surrounds), and it is a process that is contingent and emergent.

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“…Somatic awareness (interoception) has recently been shown to reflect a general sensitivity for internal bodily signals [54] and appears to be amenable to change via mindfulness interventions [55,56]. It has also been found to underlie awareness of one's emotional state [57], as well as empathy [58]. It would be worthwhile to investigate interoception further to examine, for example, how paying attention to one's own body informs paying attention to the roles and feelings of others.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%