Why the study?
The suitability of the Phase Adjustment Task for longitudinal research remains underexplored, particularly regarding practice or disengagement effects with repeated testing.
Cross-Sectional (n=381)
The Phase Adjustment Task is robust against practice effects and demonstrates that standard two-alternative forced-choice heartbeat detection tasks likely suffer from high false-negative rates due to rigid assumptions about the timing of heartbeat perception.
The Phase Adjustment Task (PAT) has been described as one of the most promising new methods for assessing cardiac interoceptive accuracy. However, the suitability of this method for longitudinal research remains underexplored. In particular, it remains unclear whether performance on this measure changes with repeated testing in the absence of feedback. To explore potential practice/disengagement effects, we pooled data from all participants who had completed the PAT on two occasions within a ~7-day period (N = 73). Results revealed no evidence of practice/disengagement effects on the PAT. These findings indicate that one potential factor influencing the suitability of the PAT for longitudinal research - practice/disengagement effects - does not occur following repeated testing, providing further evidence of the appropriateness of this measure for longitudinal research.
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Palmer et al. (2026) conducted a cross-sectional in Cardiac interoceptive accuracy (n=381). Phase Adjustment Task (PAT) delay selection vs. Predefined synchronous delays (0 ms) in the Two-Alternative Forced-Choice Heartbeat Detection Task (2AFC-HDT) was evaluated on Proportion of participants whose selected tone delays aligned with predefined synchronous delays used in the 2AFC-HDT across varying temporal windows (50 to 150 ms).
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