Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, University of Trier, Germany.
Clinical Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute for Health and Behaviour, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2019 Apr;138:47-56. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.02.001. Epub 2019 Feb 4.
Little is known about the conscious experience of internal bodily sensations in preschool-aged children. Given that preschoolers are in the most rapid phase of brain development, and display profound emotional development, it was the aim of the present study to establish an adapted interoceptive accuracy paradigm and to investigate associations between sociodemographic (age, sex) and emotional variables with interoceptive accuracy. Forty-nine children (aged 4-6 years) completed the jumping jack paradigm (JJP), a heartbeat tracking paradigm, which includes a noninvasive physical perturbation via performing jumping jacks for 10 s. An interoceptive accuracy score was based on the comparison between self-reported and objectively recorded heart rate prior to and after completion of jumping jacks. Children also completed validated measures for emotion recognition and emotion regulation. Children's objectively recorded heart rate significantly increased after the JJP by 20 bpm on average. There was a positive relationship between reactivity on self-reported heart rate and objectively recorded heart rate increase. The derived scores for interoceptive accuracy increased with age, suggesting older children to report more self-reported heart rate change than objectively recorded, but were unrelated to children's sex or BMI. While emotion recognition and regulation significantly increased with age, the interoceptive accuracy score was unrelated to emotion recognition, but marginally associated to emotion regulation. Children with higher interoceptive accuracy score (i.e., self-reporting more heart rate change than objectively recorded) received lower emotion regulation score. The present study is the first to depict a novel behavioral paradigm to assess interoceptive accuracy in preschool-aged children.
关于学龄前儿童内部身体感觉的意识体验知之甚少。鉴于学龄前儿童正处于大脑发育最快的阶段，并表现出深刻的情绪发展，本研究旨在建立一个适应的内感受准确性范式，并研究社会人口统计学（年龄、性别）和情绪变量与内感受准确性之间的关联。49 名儿童（年龄 4-6 岁）完成了跳跃杰克范式（JJP），这是一种心跳跟踪范式，包括通过跳跃杰克进行 10 秒的非侵入性身体干扰。内感受准确性得分基于跳跃杰克前后自我报告和客观记录的心率之间的比较。儿童还完成了情绪识别和情绪调节的验证性测量。儿童的客观记录心率在 JJP 后平均增加了 20 bpm。自我报告的心率和客观记录的心率增加之间存在正相关关系。内感受准确性的得分随着年龄的增长而增加，表明年龄较大的儿童比客观记录报告的自我报告心率变化更多，但与儿童的性别或 BMI 无关。虽然情绪识别和调节随着年龄的增长而显著增加，但内感受准确性得分与情绪识别无关，但与情绪调节略有相关。内感受准确性得分较高（即自我报告的心率变化比客观记录的多）的儿童情绪调节得分较低。本研究首次描述了一种新的行为范式，用于评估学龄前儿童的内感受准确性。
