The beat of social cognition: Exploring the role of heart rate variability as marker of mentalizing abilities
Open accessAbstract
There is a long-standing debate on the influence of physiological signals on social behavior. Recent studies suggested that heart rate variability (HRV) may be a marker of social cognitive processes. However, this evidence is preliminary and limited to laboratory studies. In this study, 25 participants were assessed with a social cognition battery and asked to wear a wearable device measuring HRV for 6 consecutive days. The results showed that reduced HRV correlated with higher hostility attribution bias. However, no relationship was found between HRV and other social cognitive measures including facial emotion recognition, theory of mind or emotional intelligence. These results suggest that HRV may be linked to specific social cognitive processes requiring online emotional processing, in particular those related to social threat. These findings are discussed in the context of the neurovisceral integration model.
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- Authors
- Okruszek, Ł., Dolan, K., Lawrence, M., & Cella, M.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Okruszek, Łukasz
- Venue
- Social Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2016-10-15
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 489-493
- ISSN
- 1747-0919 (ISSN-L)
- 1747-0927
- OpenAlex
- W2528221553
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3
- FWCI
- 1.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- kclpure.kcl.ac.uk
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Social Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Polish National Centre of Science (UMO-2015/16/T/HS6/00336)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Deception detection and forensic psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- heart rate variability, social cognition, mentalization, facial emotion recognition, theory of mind, emotional intelligence, social danger, neurovisceral integration model, wearable heart rate monitoring
- MeSH terms
- Facial Recognition, Heart Rate Determination, Adult, Cognition, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Male, Social Perception, Theory of Mind, Emotional Intelligence
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