The inside of me: interoceptive constraints on the concept of self in neuroscience and clinical psychology

Abstract

Humans are unique in their ability to think about themselves and carry a more or less clear notion of who they are in their mind. Here we review recent evidence suggesting that the birth, maintenance, and loss of the abstract concept of ‘self’ is deeply tied to interoception, the sense of internal physiological signals. Interoception influences multiple facets of the self-concept, cutting across its material, social, moral, and agentive components. Overall, we argue that interoception contributes to the stability of the self-concept over time, unifying its layers and constraining the degree to which it is susceptible to external influences. Hence, the core features of the self-concept are those that correlate more with inner bodily states. We discuss the implications that this may have for theories of embodied cognition as well as for the understanding of psychiatric disorders in which the concept of self appears fragmented or loose. Finally, we formulate some empirical predictions that could be tested in future studies to shed further light on this emerging field.

Body image dissatisfaction and interoceptive sensibility significantly predict postpartum depressive symptoms

“…Besides changes affecting body satisfaction, pregnancy is also associated with important internal changes involving multiple internal districts (Soma-Pillay et al, 2016), however these aspects received little attention from scientific research. The sense of the physiological condition of the internal body is known as interoception (Craig, 2002); it is at the basis of self-consciousness (e.g., Aspell et al, 2013;Monti et al, 2020;Suzuki et al, 2013, see also Herbert & Pollatos, 2012 for a review), varies extremely between individuals and results to be impaired in different mental health conditions, including mood disorders (see Khalsa et al, 2018 andMonti et al, 2021 for a recent review). Garfinkel and colleagues (2015) conceptualized interoception into three distinct dimensions, namely: interoceptive sensibility, accuracy, and awareness.…”

Concrete constraints on abstract concepts—editorial

“…In the second theoretical contribution to this section, Monti et al ( 2021 ) wrote a timely review on how signals from inside our bodies help establish our sense of self. They highlight the recently growing interest in interoceptive signal processing and review influential paradigmatic studies.…”

Abstract concepts: external influences, internal constraints, and methodological issues

“…Indeed, the ongoing debate still offers variants of the classical theories, such as Context Availability Theory (Schwanenflugel et al, 1988 ) or Dual Coding Theory (Paivio, 1986 ), extensions related to the Embodied Cognition approach (Barsalou, 1999 , 2012 ; Glenberg & Kaschak, 2003 ), as well as more recent Multiple Dimensions Theories. These latter theories underline the importance of different representational dimensions characterising abstract concepts, ranging from affective aspects (Kousta et al, 2011 ; Newcombe et al, 2012 ; Ponari et al, 2018 ; Vigliocco et al, 2014 ) to interoception (Connell et al, 2018 ; Monti et al, 2021 , this issue) and to language (Borghi, 2020 ; Dove, 2020 ). Among the theories of concepts that focus on language, some stress the role of language as neuroenhancements for conceptual representation (e.g., Language is an Embodied Neuroenhancement and Scaffold, LENS: Dove, 2014 , 2020 ), others focus on the strict link between language and social interaction in the acquisition and representation of abstract concepts (e.g., Words As social Tools, WAT: Borghi & Binkofski, 2014 ; Borghi & Cimatti, 2009 ; Borghi et al, 2019 —for a recent review on theories of abstract concepts see Borghi et al, 2017 ).…”