Speaker
Description
Over the past few decades, interoception, often referred to as the "gut feeling" aspect of being embodied, has gained recognition as a crucial building block for our sense of self and mind. Its importance extends far beyond its well-established role in regulating complex physiological processes and managing energy demands. In my presentation, I will discuss empirical findings from our lab showing how interoception covertly affect conceptual knowledge. In the first study, we elucidate the malleability of the boundaries between different concepts - particularly emotional ones - and how their conceptual representation is shaped by individual characteristics of affectivity, and psychological stressor. By using a similarity judgement task of different concepts, we created two-dimensional "maps" of the affective space along the dimensions of affective valence and physiological arousal. The maps provide a visual representation of the affective space and revealed gender and age-related differences, particularly along the dimension of arousal. In the second study, using a mouse-tracking paradigm, participants performed an interoceptive-exteroceptive categorization of abstract and concrete concepts varying for interoceptive grounding (emotion, philosophical, natural, artifact). Movement trajectories revealed the implicit activation of interoceptive features during the categorization of concrete-natural concepts, thus beyond the abstract-emotional ones. To account for individual variability in attending to bodily signals, participants performed a cardioception task (heartbeat counting task). Those who were more sensitive to their heartbeat were faster in conceptual categorization, particularly in the (exteroceptive) categorization of concrete-natural concepts. Overall, our results highlight the multiplicity of dimensions involved in conceptual knowledge, including the interoceptive ones.
| If you're submitting a symposium talk, what's the symposium title? | Interoception, affectivity and cognitive processes |
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| If you're submitting a symposium, or a talk that is part of a symposium, is this a junior symposium? | No |
