INTEROCEPTION AS MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONSTRUCT

INTEROCEPTION IS MULTIDIMENSIONAL

Distinguish:

• Interoceptive accuracy: performance-based correspondence between bodily signals and reported detection.
• Interoceptive sensibility: self-reported tendency to notice or attend to bodily sensations.
• Interoceptive awareness: relation between objective performance and subjective confidence / report.

Body attention ≠ body accuracy.

The 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis The Relationship Between Pain and Interoception (PMID 38244898; 28 studies) found, on average, reduced interoceptive accuracy in chronic pain alongside greater self-reported interoceptive sensibility / attention. Certainty was very low and the literature heterogeneous.

More attention to the body ≠ more accurate reading of the body. Ask: what kind of attention, with what accuracy, emotional reactivity, and interpretation?

Notice → discriminate → interpret → respond, rather than simply notice more.

Scope: findings in chronic pain populations must not be generalized to healthy performers, athletes, or contemplative practitioners.

Removal audit: without this distinction, somatic practice would be falsely equated with automatic bodily accuracy.