Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt, Germany.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2019 Aug;26(4):1440-1448. doi: 10.3758/s13423-019-01603-y.
Interoceptive sensitivity (IS) refers to the ability to accurately perceive visceral afferent information, and several prominent theories of emotions suggest that IS is associated with heightened emotional reactivity. Recent evidence has pointed to a decline in IS with age, but there is no consistent evidence of age-related decline in emotional reactivity. This may be because the relationship between IS and emotional reactivity changes with age. To address this hypothesis, we examined the moderating role of age in the association between IS and emotional responses to affect-inducing images. A sample of 65 young adults (mean age = 23.91 years, SD = 4.62) and 32 older adults (mean age = 61.78 years, SD = 8.76) was exposed to affect-inducing images from the Nencki Affective Picture System database and completed a heartbeat perception task. Participants' subjective emotional responses to the images were assessed with questionnaires, and their physiological reactivity was indicated by electrodermal activity, heart rate, and heart rate variability during image viewing. The results revealed that age moderated the association between IS and emotional reactivity, while no significant age differences were found in IS, change in affect, or physiological reactivity. The findings demonstrated that IS was associated with emotional reactivity for young adults but not for older adults, suggesting that young and older adults may differ in their use of internal bodily signals to obtain information about their emotional experience. Consistent with contemporary developments within the affective sciences, the results emphasize the importance of individual differences in emotional experiences.
内感受敏感性（IS）是指准确感知内脏传入信息的能力，几种突出的情绪理论表明，IS 与情绪反应性增强有关。最近的证据表明，IS 随年龄增长而下降，但情绪反应性随年龄增长而下降的证据并不一致。这可能是因为 IS 与情绪反应性之间的关系随年龄而变化。为了验证这一假设，我们考察了年龄在 IS 与情绪对诱发情绪的图像的反应之间的关系中的调节作用。一个由 65 名年轻成年人（平均年龄=23.91 岁，标准差=4.62）和 32 名老年人（平均年龄=61.78 岁，标准差=8.76）组成的样本被暴露于来自 Nencki 情感图片系统数据库的诱发情绪的图片，并完成了心跳感知任务。参与者用问卷评估他们对图片的主观情绪反应，他们的生理反应由皮肤电活动、心率和心率变异性在观看图片时表示。结果表明，年龄调节了 IS 和情绪反应性之间的关系，而 IS、情感变化或生理反应性在年龄上没有显著差异。研究结果表明，IS 与年轻成年人的情绪反应性有关，但与老年人无关，这表明年轻和老年人可能在利用内部身体信号获取有关其情绪体验的信息方面存在差异。与情感科学领域的当代发展一致，这些结果强调了个体差异在情感体验中的重要性。
