Individual Differences in Heartbeat Discrimination

In this experiment 41 subjects were trained to discriminate their own heartbeats and to discriminate an external signal. The subjects were divided into electrodermally labile and stabile subgroups. An important feature of the experiment was the development of a new procedure for assessing heartbeat discrimination, using signal detection theory methods. The results confirmed prior findings that subjects are unable to discriminate their own heartbeats without training, but that they can team such discrimination. It was also found that electrodermally labile subjects learned the heartbeat discrimination but electrodermally stabile subjects did not.