Unraveling the role of interoceptive abilities in aesthetic appreciation of movement

  • Orlandi, Andrea (Primary Chief Investigator)
  • Cross, Emily (Supervisor)
  • Candidi, Matteo (Supervisor)
  • Sowman, Paul (Supervisor)

Project: Research

Project Details

Description

Interoception refers to processes that allow us to perceive our body from the signals arising within . This ability can be assessed, for instance, by instructing individuals to focus on internal sensations and count their heartbeats for a specific period (e.g., heartbeat counting task)6. The accuracy in this performance can be modulated by practice (e.g., dance, meditation) and has been used as an index of self-awareness, emotional experience7, and artworks’ appreciation . Only recently, a growing interest has emerged in the neural mechanisms underlying interoceptive abilities and, especially, neural representations of internal body signals and their link with emotional processing14. The fronto-insulo-temporal network seems to support both heartbeat and emotional awareness , with the insular cortex shown as a crucial hub in interoceptive learning . Moreover, this network activity is enhanced when emotional stimuli (e.g., faces) are synchronously presented with observers’ heartbeats (diastole vs. systole), which also increases emotion evaluation. Quite surprisingly, such an effect has not yet been investigated in the case of movement observation, despite different emotional and aesthetic responses to specific motion kinematics (e.g., velocity) have been already shown. From these premises, the relationship between an observer’s interoceptive abilities and aesthetic evaluation of movement stands out as a novelty in the neuroscientific field. The present project aims to bridge such a gap by investigating the influence of interoception on the aesthetic experience of complex dance movement using a multi-method approach (e.g., physiological, fMRI, and MEG recordings, training).
Short titleInteroception into Action
AcronymAAVI-2020
StatusActive
Effective start/end date1/09/2231/08/25