Key result
High cardiac perception is linked to more negative emotions during mental stress despite unchanged heart rate.
Why the study?
The impact of cardiac perception on emotional experience during mental stress was investigated to understand its role in stress response variability.
Does high cardiac perception increase negative emotional experience during a mental stressor compared to low cardiac perception?
Observational
Does high cardiac perception increase negative emotional experience during a mental stressor compared to low cardiac perception?
Cardiac perception moderates the stress experience by enhancing perceived negative emotions without altering the physiological heart rate response.
Cardiac perception may amplify negative emotions during stress independent of heart rate; hypothesis-generating for interoceptive interventions in anxiety.
In the present study we aimed to investigate the impact of the ability to perceive bodily changes as indexed by the perception of one’s heartbeat (cardiac perception) on emotional experience when being confronted with a mental stressor. To induce stress, participants high and low in cardiac perception performed a computerized mental arithmetic test while listening to a white noise increasing in volume. Emotional experience and heart rate were assessed as indices of stress response. Our results show that participants high in cardiac perception reported more negative emotions during the stress period compared to participants low in cardiac perception, though heart rate did not differ between the groups. Our findings suggest that cardiac perception moderates the stress experience by enhancing the perceived emotion. Thus we were able to demonstrate that cardiac perception contributes as a factor explaining the variance in individuals’ emotional response to a stressor.
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Kindermann et al. (2014) conducted an observational in Mental stress. High cardiac perception vs. Low cardiac perception was evaluated on Emotional experience and heart rate during a mental stressor. High cardiac perception was associated with more negative emotions during a mental stressor compared to low cardiac perception, although heart rate did not differ between the groups.
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