The Relationship between Interoception and Mental Imagery

Interoception, the sense of the internal state of the body, plays a fundamental role in emotional awareness and self-referential processing. Recently, interoception has been linked to the experience of mental imagery. However, this association has not been empirically characterized. We therefore tested how task-based and self-reported measures of cardiac interoception predict individual differences in task-based and self-reported measures of mental imagery. Participants (N=104) completed two heartbeat detection tasks (heartbeat tracking and heartbeat discrimination; assessing objective interoceptive performance accuracy), and the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) questionnaire, assessing subjective dimensions of interoceptive experience. Objective and subjective aspects of mental imagery were assessed respectively from performance of a mental rotation task and from scores on the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) . Results revealed that, across participants, interoceptive (heartbeat discrimination performance) accuracy predicted mental rotation ability. In contrast, both heartbeat tracking accuracy and self-reported interoceptive awareness (MAIA) predicted self-reported vividness of mental imagery (VVIQ). Interoceptive measures did not predict performance on a control task (2-back working memory task). Together, these findings suggest that distinct components of interoception underpin different aspects of mental imagery: Heightened (cardioceptive) physiological sensitivity facilitates the active deployment of imagery in mental rotation and enhances the vividness of imagery experience. Moreover, people reporting more subjective sensitivity to interoceptive state also perceive greater vividness of mental imagery. These new results underscore the influence of bodily representation in shaping conscious experience through both controlled and spontaneous expressions of mental simulation.