title: The beat of social cognition: Exploring the role of heart rate variability as marker of mentalizing abilities.
abstract: There is a long-standing debate on the influence of physiological signals on social behavior. Recent studies suggested that heart rate variability (HRV) may be a marker of social cognitive processes. However, this evidence is preliminary and limited to laboratory studies. In this study, 25 participants were assessed with a social cognition battery and asked to wear a wearable device measuring HRV for 6 consecutive days. The results showed that reduced HRV correlated with higher hostility attribution bias. However, no relationship was found between HRV and other social cognitive measures including facial emotion recognition, theory of mind or emotional intelligence. These results suggest that HRV may be linked to specific social cognitive processes requiring online emotional processing, in particular those related to social threat. These findings are discussed in the context of the neurovisceral integration model.
authors.affiliation: a Institute of Psychology , Polish Academy of Sciences , Warsaw , Poland.|b Department of Psychology , Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London , London , UK.
authors.forename: Łukasz
authors.initials: Ł
authors.lastname: Okruszek
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London , London , UK.
authors.forename: Kirsty
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dolan
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London , London , UK.
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lawrence
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London , London , UK.
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cella
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D056348:Emotional Intelligence / Q000502:physiology; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D000070276:Heart Rate Determination; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012938:Social Perception; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Mentalizing; attribution bias; heart rate variability; mHealth