La experiencia de atender las señales del cuerpo: Bases neurofisiológicas de la relación entre la atención interoceptiva y el reconocimiento emocional.

Internal body processes give rise to signals that are perceived and integrated by the brain, generating an instantaneous monitoring of the internal body state in a process called interoception, differentiated from attention to external signals (exteroception). The overall objective of the present study was to characterize at the physiological and behavioral level the relationship between interoceptive attention and emotional recognition. Behavioral analyses of the first experiment indicate that the presentation of emotional stimuli did not have an enhancing effect on performance in interoceptive recognition tasks. Although interoceptive processes are related to emotional processes, the relevant dynamic is one of attentional compensation. In this sense, based on this idea the behavioral results of the second experiment suggest that the differences in performance on emotional recognition tasks according to attentional focus were specific to the emotional recognition task on faces. Whereas the EEG data distinguished between interoceptive and exteroceptive attentional processes, particularly during the early phase (P100) only for the emotional face recognition tasks. The group without attentional focus demonstrated greater accuracy in their responses compared to the group with exteroceptive focus at the behavioral level. In conclusion, the interrelationship between emotion and interoception is influenced by attention, especially during the initial phases of perceptual processing, as evidenced by the EEG findings. An unbalanced allocation of attentional resources could lead to emotional dysregulations and perceptual errors, contributing to physical symptoms associated with perceptual noise or could decrease attention to introspective emotions and affect empathy towards others. A new model is presented that illustrates the linking process between the external representation of salient stimuli and the internal state, highlighting the importance of attention in this connection.