Interoceptive sensitivity & social development in infancy

The ability to perceive ones own bodily states and processes, such as hunger and heartbeat, is termed interoception. Previous research has shown that adults differ in their interoceptive sensitivity. People who are sensitive to their own bodily signals can make use of their proverbial gut feeling when making decisions. In social interactions interoceptive information can be used to distinguish between self and other when relating to another persons affective experiences, irrespective of ones own affective state at the given moment. It was therefore suggested that high interoceptive sensitivity may be helpful when we need to put ourselves in other peoples shoes without losing sight of our own perspective. However, until now we know very little about how interoceptive sensitivity develops in early childhood and whether it plays a role for early social development. Here, we suggest that the development of interoceptive sensitivity might be tightly linked with the emerging ability of young children to show empathic concern for other people in need and to consider another persons perspective even when it differs from their own. An international team of researchers will team up to study the very early development of interoception and its relation to understanding other peoples emotions. We will test infants sensitivity to their own heartbeat and respiration rhythms at several time points across the first one and a half years using innovative paradigms combining physiological measures and eye tracking. We will further use experimental tasks that measure infants ability to relate to other peoples affective experiences. We expect that as infants get better at detecting their own heartbeat and breathing rhythms, their ability to understand other peoples emotional states that differ from their own will improve. Interoceptive sensitivity may thus, by providing information on ones own inner state, support very early social development. The project will be the first to relate interoceptive sensitivity to social development in infancy. Given that atypical interoception has been linked, for instance, with autism spectrum disorder, which is also marked by severe deficits in perspective taking, linking individual differences in interoceptive sensitivity to early social abilities will have wider implications for understanding both healthy and atypical early social development.

In everyday life, we are often guided by our proverbial gut feeling. We don't consciously think about every single decision but do what feels right at the time. Current neuroscientific and psychological research shows that a variety of bodily processes, such as our heartbeat, affect human behaviour. The ability to perceive our own bodily states and processes, such as hunger and heartbeat, is known as interoception. There are considerable individual differences. For example, some people perceive their own bodily processes very accurately, while others have difficulties doing so. In the current project, we found that significant differences in interoceptive accuracy can also be found in a large German-speaking sample of over 3,400 people. A lack of accuracy in the perception of one's own body was linked to psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. In addition, some people pay attention to their bodies very often, while others do not. In a further study of more than 640 adults, we found that a very high level of attention to bodily processes is associated with psychopathological symptoms, including increased anxiety. These research findings show that interoception is a complex and psychologically highly relevant phenomenon. However, we still know very little about how interoception develops in early childhood. In the current project, we therefore investigated for the first time whether babies aged 3, 9 and 18 months can perceive their own heartbeat and breathing rhythm. We used innovative methods that combined physiological measurements and eye tracking and investigated babies in more than 230 testing sessions. We showed figures on a screen that pulsated either synchronously or asynchronously with infants' own heartbeat or breathing. In all age groups, the babies looked at the screen for longer when the figure moved in synchrony with their own heartbeat. This suggests that babies can perceive their own heart rhythm from the age of 3 months. A similar but less clear picture emerged for breathing. Only the perception of breathing showed an improvement between 9 and 18 months. In addition, the perception of heartbeat and breathing were only related in the oldest age group. We could further show that heartbeat perception in 9-month-old infants and their mothers is related. Our results provide a characterisation of the early development of interoceptive abilities in the first two years of life. Babies can perceive their own heartbeat at an extremely early age, while the perception of their own breathing rhythm is still developing. Further, heartbeat perception in infants and mothers is related at 9-months of age. In additional analyses, we will investigate whether the interoceptive abilities of babies are linked to their social behaviour. Interoceptive sensitivity could support early social development by providing information about one's own inner state.