Trait and state: interoceptive accuracy during anticipation of public speaking in junior secondary shy students from an eastern province of China

This study investigated the interoceptive accuracy (IAc) of shy adolescents during antici- pation of public speaking with a 2 × 2 factorial design. Altogether, 637 junior secondary students in an eastern province of China were sampled and screened with the Chinese version of Cheek and Buss shyness scale. The top 27% of students were considered the shy group (n = 30, 16 girls, Mage = 13.03, SD = 0.67), whereas the bottom 27% were labelled the non-shy group (n = 31, 16 girls, Mage = 13.16, SD = 0.86). The two groups of participants estimated their heart rates during specified inter- vals using a mental tracking paradigm in two conditions (baseline vs. anticipation), while their ac- tual heart rates were simultaneously measured. The results indicated that: (1) the shy adolescents were more accurate in estimating their actual heart rate than non-shy adolescents; and (2) both shy and non-shy adolescents exhibit enhanced IAc in anticipation conditions when compared with base- line conditions. Implications of the higher IAc of shy adolescents and the state feature of IAc are discussed.