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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Perception Science
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1442138

Influence of Alexithymia Severity in the Healthy Population on the Susceptibility to False Interoceptive Feedback

Provisionally accepted
Hitomi Ikarashi Hitomi Ikarashi 1,2Naofumi Otsuru Naofumi Otsuru 1,2*Sena Takahashi Sena Takahashi 1*Kazuaki Nagasaka Kazuaki Nagasaka 1,2Masayuki Hara Masayuki Hara 3*Hideaki Onishi Hideaki Onishi 1,2
  • 1 Niigata University of Health and Welfare, Niigata, Japan
  • 2 Institute for Human Movement and Medical Sciences, Niigata University of Health and Welfare, Niigata, Niigata, Japan
  • 3 Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Saitama, Saitama, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Alexithymia is a psychological trait characterized by difficulty expressing emotions. Previous studies reported that individuals with higher alexithymia have a decreased sense of interoception, which is the sense of monitoring and controlling internal organs. Thus, we hypothesized that internal organ activity (cardiac activities in the present study) was easily affected by false feedback in individuals with severe alexithymia. Therefore, we investigated whether the effects of fake heart rate feedback on real cardiac activities differ depending on the severity of alexithymia as assessed by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Fake heart rate feedback was presented as if it were occurring in the individual's hand through a virtual reality system at various speeds. Changes in cardiac activities were evaluated by the root-mean-square-successive difference (RMSSD, high value indicates greater parasympathetic tone) of the heartbeat interval. Our findings revealed a negative correlation between externally oriented thinking, a subscale of the TAS-20 score, and the RMSSD change ratio elicited by fake heart rate feedback. These findings indicate that individuals with higher alexithymia might be particularly susceptible to external fake feedback.

    Keywords: alexithymia1, Virtual Reality2, Embodiment3, neuroscience4, interoception5, Interoceptive Feedback6

    Received: 03 Jun 2024; Accepted: 10 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ikarashi, Otsuru, Takahashi, Nagasaka, Hara and Onishi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Naofumi Otsuru, Niigata University of Health and Welfare, Niigata, Japan
    Sena Takahashi, Niigata University of Health and Welfare, Niigata, Japan
    Masayuki Hara, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Saitama, 338-8570, Saitama, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.