title: Interoception and symptom reporting: disentangling accuracy and bias.
abstract: Anxiety and anxiety sensitivity are positively related to accuracy in the perception of bodily sensations. At the same time, research consistently reports that these traits are positively related to bias, resulting in the report of more and more intense symptoms that poorly correspond with physiological dysfunction. The aim of this study was to test the relationship of accuracy and bias in interoception. Furthermore, we tested the impact of individual differences in negative affect and symptom report in daily life on interoceptive accuracy and bias. Individuals higher in symptom report in daily life and negative affect were marginally more accurate in an interoceptive classification task in which participants were asked to identify different respiratory stimuli (inducing breathing effort) as belonging to a high or low intensity category. At the same time, bias in overestimating intensity of stimuli was significantly increased in participants higher in symptom report and negative affect, but only for more ambiguous stimuli. Results illustrate that interoceptive accuracy and bias need to be considered independently to understand their interaction with psychological factors and to disentangle (mis)perception of bodily sensations from liberal or conservative perceptual decision strategies.
authors.affiliation: Research Group on Health Psychology, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium ; Institute for Health and Behaviour, University of Luxembourg Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Sibylle
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.affiliation: Research Group on Health Psychology, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Van Staeyen
authors.affiliation: Institute for Health and Behaviour, University of Luxembourg Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Claus
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vögele
authors.affiliation: Research Group on Health Psychology, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: von Leupoldt
authors.affiliation: Research Group on Health Psychology, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Omer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Van den Bergh
keywords: accuracy; bias; classification; decision strategies; interoception; negative affect; sensitivity; symptom report