On the Validity of Heartbeat Tracking Tasks

Flynn, Deborah M.; Clemens, William J.

doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.1988.tb00965.x

Cited by 31 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…As research on interoceptive processes has grown (Shivkumar et al, 2016;Tsakiris & Critchley, 2016), the Schandry (1981) heartbeat counting procedure, which is simple to implement and quick to execute, has become the main method used to assess individual differences in interoceptive sensitivity. 1 However, the face validity of the counting task has been challenged repeatedly on the grounds that individuals may perform accurately by counting at a rate that approximates their heart rates but without actually detecting any heartbeat sensations (Flynn & Clemens, 1988;Jones, 1994;Katkin & Reed, 1988;Kleckner, Wormwood, Simmons, Barrett, & Quigley, 2015;Weisz, B alazs, & Ad am, 1988;Yates, Jones, Marie, & Hogben, 1985). This criticism has been supported by the publication of a series of experimental findings showing that counts are based more on beliefs about heart rate than on sensations generated by heartbeats (Pennebaker, 1981;Pennebaker & Hoover, 1984;Phillips, Jones, Rieger, & Snell, 1999;Ring & Brener, 1996;Ring, Brener, Knapp, & Mailoux, 2015;Windmann, Schonecke, Frohlig, & Maldener, 1999).…”

Section: Heartbeat Countingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heartbeat counting is unrelated to heartbeat detection: A comparison of methods to quantify interoception

2018

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Recent research has identified individual differences in interoceptive sensitivity as a key source of variation in action, cognition, and emotion. This research has relied heavily on a single method for assessing interoceptive sensitivity: the accuracy of counting heartbeats while at rest. The validity of this method was assessed here by comparing the heartbeat counting (HBC) performance of 48 individuals with their heartbeat detection (HBD) performance. The HBC task required participants to report the numbers of heartbeats counted during brief signaled periods and indexed cardioceptive accuracy by the difference between the numbers of reported and actual heartbeats. In the HBD task, participants indicated the temporal location of heartbeat sensations relative to the onset of ventricular contraction. On each trial, they judged whether heartbeat sensations were or were not simultaneous with brief tones presented at one of six fixed delays following R waves of the ECG. In this method, cardioceptive accuracy or precision was indexed by variability in the temporal locations, relative to the R wave, of tones judged to be simultaneous with heartbeat sensations. Although intratask correlations indicated that each method yielded reliable scores, intertask correlations showed that HBC scores were unrelated to HBD scores. These results, which indicate that heartbeat detection and heartbeat counting are distinct processes, raise important questions about the assessment of interoceptive sensitivity and the involvement of this attribute in the psychological processes that have been associated with it on the basis of their correlations with HBC performance.

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Section: Heartbeat Countingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heartbeat counting is unrelated to heartbeat detection: A comparison of methods to quantify interoception

2018

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“…A critical objective of this work is to determine the mechanisms by which interoception interacts with cognition and emotion, in order to ultimately derive sensitive and specific neuropsychiatric biomarkers from individual indices of visceral sensitivity. The majority of studies along these lines attempt to measure “interoceptive accuracy” (iACC) in the cardiac domain, as measured by the Heartbeat Counting (HBC) task (Dale & Anderson, 1978; Schandry, 1981), and similar heartbeat tracking or tapping tasks (Flynn & Clemens, 1988). While easy to implement, these tasks suffer from serious methodological challenges that obscure their interpretation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These simple measures require participants to silently attend to and count their heartbeats for various intervals, or to tap in rhythm to felt beats. Several authors point out that participants could exploit various strategies to increase their accuracy (Clemens, 1979; Flynn & Clemens, 1988; Pennebaker & Hoover, 1984). Crucially, even when the heart rate is directly modulated by as much as 100 beats per minute (BPM) via pacemaker, counted heartbeats showed little alteration beyond expectations about different sitting or standing postures on the heart rate (Windmann et al, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The heart rate discrimination task: a psychophysical method to estimate the accuracy and precision of interoceptive beliefs

Legrand

Nikolova

Correa

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Interoception - the physiological sense of our inner bodies - has risen to the forefront of psychological and psychiatric research. Much of this research utilizes tasks that attempt to measure the ability to accurately detect cardiac signals. Unfortunately, these approaches are confounded by well-known issues limiting their validity and interpretation. At the core of this controversy is the role of subjective beliefs about the heart rate in confounding measures of interoceptive accuracy. Here, we recast these beliefs as an important part of the causal machinery of interoception, and offer a novel psychophysical "heart rate discrimination" method to estimate their accuracy and precision. By applying this task in 218 healthy participants, we demonstrate that cardiac interoceptive beliefs are more biased, less precise, and are associated with poorer metacognitive insight relative to a matched exteroceptive control. Our task, provided as an open-source python package, offers users an intuitive, robust approach to quantifying cardiac beliefs.

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“…The additionally conducted modified tracking task basically confirmed the above findings. Therefore, in the context of the whole study, it is justifiable to report these results in spite of the recently questioned validity of the tracking method (Flynn & Clemens, 1988).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Cardiac perception in diabetic autonomic neuropathy was assessed with a heartbeat (mental) tracking task and an arrhythmia perception task. Whereas the latter is a naturalistic and established procedure for studying the perceptivity of arrhythmias, the validity and reliability of heartbeat (motor) tracking techniques have been questioned (Pennebaker & Hoover, 1984;Flynn & Clemens, 1988). We have included our findings with the heartbeat tracking task for several reasons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heartbeat and arrhythmia perception in diabetic autonomic neuropathy

et al. 1991

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sYNOPSISA comparative study of diabetics with autonomic neuropathy (N = 13) as against nonneuropathic diabetics (N = 16) and healthy control persons (N = 20) was carried out with respect 10 heart rate both at rest and under stress, frequency of cardiac arrhythmias in a 24-h ECG and accuracy of heartbeat and arrhythmia perception. In the subjects with diabetic autonomic neuropathy, the spontaneaus variability and stress-induced reactivity of the heart rate as weil as the number of tachycardic episodes were reduced, whereas the frequency of ventricular extrasystoles was somewhat increased. Impaired heartbeat perception and a complete Ioss of perception of arrhythmias as a consequence of neuropathic deafferentation could be demonstrated. Cardiac perception disordersalso playavital roJe in other clinical problems, e.g. silent myocardial infarction and Iack of awareness of hypoglycaemia in diabetes mellitus.

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On the Validity of Heartbeat Tracking Tasks

Cited by 31 publications

References 13 publications

Heartbeat counting is unrelated to heartbeat detection: A comparison of methods to quantify interoception

Heartbeat counting is unrelated to heartbeat detection: A comparison of methods to quantify interoception

The heart rate discrimination task: a psychophysical method to estimate the accuracy and precision of interoceptive beliefs

Heartbeat and arrhythmia perception in diabetic autonomic neuropathy

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