Jennifer Murphy
University of Surrey, United Kingdom

Interoception - the emperor's new clothes?

Interoception is described as the perception of the internal state of one’s body and includes sensations such as cardiac or respiratory signals. Despite great interest in interoception, there remains uncertainty regarding the measurement and conceptualization of interoception, as well as its relationship with health and higher order cognition. This talk will provide an overview of work that has scrutinised the measurement of interoception and sought to develop solutions to the challenges of interoception measurement that may be used to understand the relevance of interoception for health and cognition. Together these findings suggest that interoception is a multifaceted construct with relevance for health and cognition, though further work is required to adequately measure individual differences in interoceptive ability.