Measuring Cardiac Interoceptive Accuracy in Infancy: Lessons From the Adult Literature.

Abstract

Models of interoception, the processing of internal bodily signals, highlight infancy as a key period for interoceptive learning. Given the potential importance of this developmental period, there has been increasing focus on the measurement of cardiac interoceptive accuracy in infancy. In this paper, we argue that despite progress in this area, the current methods for assessing cardiac interoceptive accuracy in infancy suffer from many of the same limitations as tasks of cardiac interoceptive accuracy employed in adult samples. To progress work in this area, this paper critically reviews methods of cardiac interoceptive accuracy employed in adults and infants and provides several recommendations for optimizing the measurement of cardiac interoceptive accuracy in infants. These include, but are not limited to, methodological choices regarding the presentation of stimuli, the use of control tasks, the analysis strategy employed, and the importance of considering state effects.