Cardiac Interoception in Infants: Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures in Various Emotional and Self-Related Contexts

Interoception, the perception of internal bodily signals, is fundamental to our sense of self. Even though theoretical accounts suggest an important role for interoception in the development of the self, empirical investigations are limited, in particular, in infancy. Previous studies used preferential-looking paradigms to assess the detection of sensorimotor and multisensory contingencies in infancy, usually related to proprioception and touch. So far, only one single recent study reported that infants discriminated audiovisual stimuli that were presented synchronous or asynchronous with their heartbeat. This discrimination was related to the amplitude of the infant’s heartbeat evoked potentials (HEP), a neural correlate of interoception. In the current study, we measured looking preferences between synchronous and asynchronous visuocardiac (bimodal), and audiovisuocardiac (trimodal) stimuli as well as the HEP in conditions of different emotional contexts and with different degrees of self- relatedness in a mirror-like setup. While the infants preferred trimodal to bimodal stimuli, we did not observe the predicted differences between synchronous and asynchronous stimulation. Furthermore, the HEP was not modulated by either the emotional context or by the self-relatedness. These findings contradict previously published findings and highlight the need for further studies on the early development of interoception in relation to the development of the self.