Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training

“When computing the scale growths as baseline corrected T1 values (Residual of Y1 regressed on Y0; see Cohen et al., 2003, p. 375), and again subjecting those values to t-tests, women showed stronger improvements on emotional awareness than men, t(146) = 1.99, p = 0.048.”

“…122 male, mean age = 41.8, SD = 9.1; age range = 20–55; from samples 1,5, and 6; see Table 2) filled out the Five Factor Mindfulness Inventory (FFMQ; Baer et al., 2006; Otto, 2012), which had previously been reported to be positively correlated with the MAIA (Mehling et al., 2012), and a measure…”

“Interoception has been shown to be critical for the sense of self and the creation of a subjective perspective from which the world is experienced (Varela et al., 1991; Craig, 2002, 2009; Critchley et al., 2004; Berlucchi and Aglioti, 2010; Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014).”

“…awareness of signals from the inside of the body, such as the perception of heart beats, the breath, or movements of the viscera, and higher-order top– down processes including biases, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions regarding those perceptions (Cameron, 2001; Craig, 2002; Mehling et al., 2009).”

“This was expected, as mindfulness entails the awareness of inner states and processes, of which body sensations are an important part (Baer et al., 2006; Shapiro et al., 2006).”

“This makes sense, as all practice-induced changes tend to be stronger, when the practice is embraced with emotional inclination and verve (Pekrun et al., 2002; Hu et al., 2007).”

“Recent studies and meta-analyses have also found dose dependent effects to be very small or even absent in meditation based interventions (Carmody and Baer, 2009; Hofmann et al., 2010; Jensen et al., 2012).”

“Interoception has been shown to be critical for the sense of self and the creation of a subjective perspective from which the world is experienced (Varela et al., 1991; Craig, 2002, 2009; Critchley et al., 2004; Berlucchi and Aglioti, 2010; Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014).”

“Furthermore, IA is critical for decision making (Sanfey et al., 2003; Dunn et al., 2010; Sütterlin et al., 2013) and self-control of behavior in various situations with impact on health and disease (Herbert et al., 2007, 2012a, 2013; Herbert and Pollatos, 2014).”

“Contemplative traditions have also widely recognized the importance of IA (Selby, 1992; Goldstein and Kornfield, 1995; Vaughan, 2002; Hölzel et al., 2011; Kerr et al., 2013) and devised mental training practices, such as bodily focused meditations, to train awareness of body sensations (Hart, 1987;…”

“…lifetime practice hours and outcome variables such as interospective abilities (Fox et al., 2012), and brain structure (Lazar et al., 2005), and some longitudinal training studies also demonstrate dose-dependent effects (e.g., Carmody and Baer, 2008; Pace et al., 2009; Rosenzweig et al., 2010).”

“The result of these investigations is the multidimensional assessment of interoceptive awareness (MAIA, Mehling et al., 2012), a 32-item self-report measure that measures IA on eight dimensions.”

“…(Farb et al., under review), which denotes the objective ability of a subject to accurately perceive inner bodily signals, such as the heartbeat (Brener and Jones, 1974; Whitehead et al., 1977; Schandry, 1981), breathing (Davenport et al., 2007), or gastric activity (Herbert et al., 2012b).”

“It is also important for awareness and regulation of emotions (Dunn et al., 2007; Silani et al., 2008; Herbert et al., 2011; Füstös et al., 2013; Koch and Pollatos, 2014) as well as empathy (Singer et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2010; Lamm and Singer, 2010; Terasawa et al., 2014).”

“Second, qualitative research (e.g., using elicitation interviews, Petitmengin, 2006), could dig deeper into the ways in which participants’ relationship to their bodies, their sense of embodiment, or their deliberate use of body-focus is altered through the training.”

“…lifetime practice hours and outcome variables such as interospective abilities (Fox et al., 2012), and brain structure (Lazar et al., 2005), and some longitudinal training studies also demonstrate dose-dependent effects (e.g., Carmody and Baer, 2008; Pace et al., 2009; Rosenzweig et al., 2010).”

“It is also important for awareness and regulation of emotions (Dunn et al., 2007; Silani et al., 2008; Herbert et al., 2011; Füstös et al., 2013; Koch and Pollatos, 2014) as well as empathy (Singer et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2010; Lamm and Singer, 2010; Terasawa et al., 2014).”

“Recent studies and meta-analyses have also found dose dependent effects to be very small or even absent in meditation based interventions (Carmody and Baer, 2009; Hofmann et al., 2010; Jensen et al., 2012).”

“It is also important for awareness and regulation of emotions (Dunn et al., 2007; Silani et al., 2008; Herbert et al., 2011; Füstös et al., 2013; Koch and Pollatos, 2014) as well as empathy (Singer et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2010; Lamm and Singer, 2010; Terasawa et al., 2014).”

“…awareness of signals from the inside of the body, such as the perception of heart beats, the breath, or movements of the viscera, and higher-order top– down processes including biases, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions regarding those perceptions (Cameron, 2001; Craig, 2002; Mehling et al., 2009).”

“ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 06 January 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01504 Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training”

“However, most standardized questionnaires do not fully use this potential, either because they assess only one dimension of IA (e.g., Body Awareness Questionnaire, Shields et al., 1989; Private Body Consciousness Scale, Miller et al., 1981) or because they assess different aspects together in one scale (see Mehling et…”

“…lifetime practice hours and outcome variables such as interospective abilities (Fox et al., 2012), and brain structure (Lazar et al., 2005), and some longitudinal training studies also demonstrate dose-dependent effects (e.g., Carmody and Baer, 2008; Pace et al., 2009; Rosenzweig et al., 2010).”

“Such change in the understanding of language describing inner states and processes through meditation practice has been discussed by Grossman (2008) in relation to mindfulness questionnaires.”

“This makes sense, as all practice-induced changes tend to be stronger, when the practice is embraced with emotional inclination and verve (Pekrun et al., 2002; Hu et al., 2007).”

“It is also important for awareness and regulation of emotions (Dunn et al., 2007; Silani et al., 2008; Herbert et al., 2011; Füstös et al., 2013; Koch and Pollatos, 2014) as well as empathy (Singer et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2010; Lamm and Singer, 2010; Terasawa et al., 2014).”

“ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 06 January 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01504 Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training”

“ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 06 January 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01504 Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training”

“However, most standardized questionnaires do not fully use this potential, either because they assess only one dimension of IA (e.g., Body Awareness Questionnaire, Shields et al., 1989; Private Body Consciousness Scale, Miller et al., 1981) or because they assess different aspects together in one scale (see Mehling et…”

“Similarly, Noticing aspects of IA have been shown to be increased in yoga practitioners (Rani and Rao, 1994; Daubenmier, 2005; Impett et al., 2006).”

“It is also important for awareness and regulation of emotions (Dunn et al., 2007; Silani et al., 2008; Herbert et al., 2011; Füstös et al., 2013; Koch and Pollatos, 2014) as well as empathy (Singer et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2010; Lamm and Singer, 2010; Terasawa et al., 2014).”

“Interoception has been shown to be critical for the sense of self and the creation of a subjective perspective from which the world is experienced (Varela et al., 1991; Craig, 2002, 2009; Critchley et al., 2004; Berlucchi and Aglioti, 2010; Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014).”

“Alphas of the English MAIA as reported by Mehling et al. (2012) were compared to the present alphas of the German MAIA using the Feldt-Test (Feldt, 1969).”

“ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 06 January 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01504 Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training”

“…traditions have also widely recognized the importance of IA (Selby, 1992; Goldstein and Kornfield, 1995; Vaughan, 2002; Hölzel et al., 2011; Kerr et al., 2013) and devised mental training practices, such as bodily focused meditations, to train awareness of body sensations (Hart, 1987;…”

“Recent studies and meta-analyses have also found dose dependent effects to be very small or even absent in meditation based interventions (Carmody and Baer, 2009; Hofmann et al., 2010; Jensen et al., 2012).”

“…January 2015 | Volume 5 | Article 1504 | 1 of the heartbeat is not increased in meditators (Nielsen and Kaszniak, 2006; Khalsa et al., 2008; Melloni et al., 2013; Parkin et al., 2013) and accurate perception of breathing, was only slightly better in experienced…”

“ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 06 January 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01504 Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training”

“Interoception has been shown to be critical for the sense of self and the creation of a subjective perspective from which the world is experienced (Varela et al., 1991; Craig, 2002, 2009; Critchley et al., 2004; Berlucchi and Aglioti, 2010; Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014).”

“It is also important for awareness and regulation of emotions (Dunn et al., 2007; Silani et al., 2008; Herbert et al., 2011; Füstös et al., 2013; Koch and Pollatos, 2014) as well as empathy (Singer et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2010; Lamm and Singer, 2010; Terasawa et al., 2014).”

“Furthermore, IA is critical for decision making (Sanfey et al., 2003; Dunn et al., 2010; Sütterlin et al., 2013) and self-control of behavior in various situations with impact on health and disease (Herbert et al., 2007, 2012a, 2013; Herbert and Pollatos, 2014).”

“It is also important for awareness and regulation of emotions (Dunn et al., 2007; Silani et al., 2008; Herbert et al., 2011; Füstös et al., 2013; Koch and Pollatos, 2014) as well as empathy (Singer et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2010; Lamm and Singer, 2010; Terasawa et al., 2014).”

“This holds for studies using subjective measures (e.g., Impett et al., 2006) as well as studies using objective measures such as breathing sensitivity (e.g., Daubenmier et al., 2013).”

“Interoception has been shown to be critical for the sense of self and the creation of a subjective perspective from which the world is experienced (Varela et al., 1991; Craig, 2002, 2009; Critchley et al., 2004; Berlucchi and Aglioti, 2010; Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014).”

“Furthermore, IA is critical for decision making (Sanfey et al., 2003; Dunn et al., 2010; Sütterlin et al., 2013) and self-control of behavior in various situations with impact on health and disease (Herbert et al., 2007, 2012a, 2013; Herbert and Pollatos, 2014).”

“This holds for studies using subjective measures (e.g., Impett et al., 2006) as well as studies using objective measures such as breathing sensitivity (e.g., Daubenmier et al., 2013).”

“…January 2015 | Volume 5 | Article 1504 | 1 of the heartbeat is not increased in meditators (Nielsen and Kaszniak, 2006; Khalsa et al., 2008; Melloni et al., 2013; Parkin et al., 2013) and accurate perception of breathing, was only slightly better in experienced meditators compared to…”

“…Volume 5 | Article 1504 | 1 of the heartbeat is not increased in meditators (Nielsen and Kaszniak, 2006; Khalsa et al., 2008; Melloni et al., 2013; Parkin et al., 2013) and accurate perception of breathing, was only slightly better in experienced meditators compared to non-meditating controls…”

“ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 06 January 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01504 Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training”

“Similarly, Noticing aspects of IA have been shown to be increased in yoga practitioners (Rani and Rao, 1994; Daubenmier, 2005; Impett et al., 2006).”

“Furthermore, IA is critical for decision making (Sanfey et al., 2003; Dunn et al., 2010; Sütterlin et al., 2013) and self-control of behavior in various situations with impact on health and disease (Herbert et al., 2007, 2012a, 2013; Herbert and Pollatos, 2014).”

“…(Farb et al., under review), which denotes the objective ability of a subject to accurately perceive inner bodily signals, such as the heartbeat (Brener and Jones, 1974; Whitehead et al., 1977; Schandry, 1981), breathing (Davenport et al., 2007), or gastric activity (Herbert et al., 2012b).”

“[18, 19] Using perturbances of autonomic heartbeat function and measuring the related interoceptive ability may aid in clarifying basic science questions regarding interoception[20] but may be viewed as a rather artificial context limiting its capability to capture the richness of interoceptive phenomenology.[12, 21]…”

“A wealth of other body-oriented healing and psychotherapy methods may also fall into this classification, such as Dialectical–Behavioral Therapy (Linehan et al., 1999), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Hayes et al., 1999), and also body-mind approaches such as Feldenkrais (Buchanan and Ulrich,…”

“…a healthy population, simply attending to the body from a variety of contemplative practices appears to increase IA with its associated benefits (Gibson, 2014; Villemure et al., 2014; Bornemann et al., 2015; Schmalzl et al., 2015), but increasing IA in a clinical population can be problematic.”

“In fact, the Pearson’s correlations between the interscale correlation matrices of the Italian MAIA, on the one side, and those of the English, German, and Chilean MAIA, on the other side, were very high (respectively, 0.896, 0.925, and 0.925; all ps < 0.001), highlighting a high second-order Frontiers in Psychology |…”

“Bornemann et al. (2015), who recently translated the MAIA into German and demonstrated good scale properties, found that a 3-month contemplative training that included the bodyscan and breath meditation techniques lead to changes on several scales in a sample of individuals with good psychological…”

“Additionally, it was shown that meditation training enhanced interoceptive awareness only (Bornemann et al., 2015) but not the ability to accurately count heartbeats which we refer to as ‘‘interoceptive accuracy” (Khalsa et al., 2008).”

“In a recent study of Bornemann et al. (2015), IS could be shown to improve after a 3 months BS intervention and breathing meditation compared to a retest control group, which was recruited to investigate effects of repeated testing.”

“Also consistent with prior research (Bornemann, Herbert, Mehling, & Singer, 2015; Mehling et al., 2012, 2013; Valenzuela ‐ Moguillansky & Reyes ‐ Reyes, 2015), we found that four out of eight subscales demonstrated good internal consistency.”

“…extensive review of previously published body awareness scales and their items, opinions and ratings from expert practitioners of mind-body practices (Mehling et al. 2011), and factor analytic testing (Mehling et al. 2012, for the original scale; Bornemann et al. 2015, for the German translation).”

“MAIA Self-Regulation stood out as the largest positive standardized effect size, which is in line with results from a study of a 6-month Presence training using a body scan and mindful attention to breathing in healthy volunteers (Bornemann et al., 2014).”

“The MAIA has demonstrated satisfactory evidence of convergent validity, internal consistency [63], and test-retest reliability [44].”

“Convergent and discriminant correlations of the MAIA factors We computed factor correlations between the MAIA factors (i.e., the general factor, Not-Distracting and Not-Worrying) and covariates by estimating structural equation models for each covariate separately.”

“…and South-American cultures to a great degree confirmed its original factor structure, only with very few exceptions regarding item loadings (e.g., Bornemann et al., 2015; Brytek-Matera and Koziel, 2015; Calì et al., 2015; Valenzuela-Moguillansky and Reyes-Reyes, 2015; Grabauskaitė et al., 2017).”

“…explored the correlations between interoception questionnaires, they generally have reported low to moderate correlations ( r range = –.63 to .65; Bornemann et al., 2014; Brewer et al., 2016; Brytek-Matera & Kozieł, 2015; Fiene et al., 2018; Hughes et al., 2019; Murphy, Catmur, & Bird, 2019;…”

“Thus far, there has been only one controlled study in participants with clinical anxiety, and the findings showed significant reductions in self-reported symptoms of generalized anxiety following 12 sessions of Floatation-REST that was maintained at 6-month follow-up (17).”

“…Therapy) that emphasize that attention toward the body, and accurate perception and regulation of bodily signals, promotes psychological well-being, physical health, and adaptive behavior [Bornemann et al., 2015; Bornemann & Singer, 2017; Kabat-Zinn, 2003; Spek, Van Ham, & Nyklíček, 2013].”

“In addition, mindfulness-based stress reduction is often regarded as a component of contemplative interoception training [40]; this type of training was presumed to influence changes in decision making.”

“Moreover, it is suitable for a repeated-measures design (Bornemann et al., 2015).”

“methods focusing on the body in a non-judging way such as the so-called body-scan could show that interoceptive sensibility as assessed by questionnaire could be improved when trained over a time period of 3 months in healthy controls (Bornemann et al., 2015).”

“Bornemann et al. (2014) analyzed whether the factor structure of the English MAIA would replicate in the German version.”

“Moreover, attention regulation, representing the ability to sustain and control attention to body sensations, showed the second-largest increase after mindfulness training [44].”

“In contrast, the Noticing scale has been criticized for problematic reliability in some studies [34], but validations using the German translation consistently demonstrated acceptable internal consistency [45,63].”

“[66] The MAIA is increasingly studied, and, although still relatively sparse, reports to date consistently suggest that mindfulness interventions engage with the measure.[67, 68] As described in the theoretical framework (Fig 1), mindfulness training develops attention control through meditative practices on objects s…”

“…other IBIs may attempt to train interoceptive accuracy, or perceptual metacognition per se with bene fi cial effects on anxiety symptoms, 49,50 while practices such as mindfulness, stemming out of contemplative traditions, target more attentional and attributive aspects of interoception,…”

“Some evidence suggests that interoceptive abilities can be increased through dedicated training programmes (Bornemann et al., 2014).”

“Interestingly, according to the present findings, age‐related changes do not occur in all dimensions of interoceptive awareness, confirming the necessity to differentiate the measurement of these dimensions, as has been pointed out in prior studies (Bornemann et al., 2015; Mehling, 2016).”

“Whilst potentially concerning, reassuringly large associations were also observed when anxiety was assessed using the GAD-7 and STAI in large samples (Narapareddy et al., 2022; Pick et al., 2020; Bornemann et al., 2015; Elliott & Pfeifer, 2022; Eng et al., 2020; K ¨ oteles and Doering, 2016).”

“This result is similar to the MAIA in the original English version (Mehling et al., 2012, 2013), the German version (Bornemann et al., 2015), the Spanish version (ValenzuelaMoguillansky & Reyes-Reyes, 2015), and the Italian version (Calı́, Ambrosini, Picconi, Mehling, & Committeri, 2015).”

“In addition, MAIA is shown to have sensitivity to change (Bornemann et al., 2015; de Jong et al., 2016).”

“Mindfulness emphasizes the connection between the mind and body, increasing interoceptive awareness – the ability to perceive internal bodily sensations, such as hunger, thirst, temperature, heart rate, breathing patterns, muscle tension, fatigue, and overall physical discomfort [15–23].”

“The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) instrument(45) was developed to measure beneficial dimensions of interoceptive attention and to aid in understanding the effects of interoceptive training such as the YT technology-assisted meditation.(37,46,47) The MAIA scale was developed with careful…”

“By cultivating bodily and breathing awareness, users can come to better understand the connections between their physical and emotional experiences, thereby fnding novel paths to regulate emotion and develop a higher sense of trust of their own body [8].”

“To evaluate the effectiveness of mind-body interventions, it is crucial to have validated instruments to assess interoceptive awareness (7, 11).”

“The FFMQ has shown good convergent validity with the MAIA (Bornemann et al., 2014; Mehling et al., 2012).”

“In such work, bodily awareness refers to greater interoception (e.g. sensing visceral bodily sensations) [13,20,29], as well as perception of physical sensations (e.g. tactile sensitivity) [24,39,56].”

“Evidence shows that mindfulness practice increases body awareness (Bornemann et al. 2015).”

“These findings are in line with prior studies showing significant improvements in various MAIA facets after an MBI in clinical [24,26,84] and non-clinical populations [27,85].”

“…notably vagus nerve stimulation (Conway and Xiong, 2018) and flotation therapy (Feinstein et al., 2018), bio-behavioural therapies (e.g., autonomic biofeedback training) (Nagai, 2015), and integrative interventions (e.g., mindfulness and yoga) (Bornemann et al., 2015; Mehling et al., 2018).”

“Specifically, in-person MBIs have been associated with reduced loneliness, decreased mind-wandering, and the occurrence of distracting thoughts which can increase interoceptive awareness (Bornemann et al., 2015; Farb et al., 2013, 2015; Gibson, 2019; Hanley et al., 2017; Loucks et al., 2021; Miller et al., 2019; Mraze…”

“Then, a vicious cycle of negative automatic thoughts, detrimental safety behaviors, selective attention, and monitoring is triggered.”

“We expected to find that MAIA scores would be positively associated with trait mindfulness and self-esteem [4, 6, 39, 40].”

“Specifically, mindfulness may be used to enhance both attentional control and interoceptive awareness.(24,25) Disengagement of attention from appetitive cues coupled with awareness of interoceptive signals can then facilitate reappraisal—a reframing of the meaning of appetitive stimuli that can in turn increase contex…”

“Each of the eight subscales of the MAIA were entered as dependent variables in the analysis, with pain responder group (Sensory-Localized versus Affective-Generalized versus Non-Responders) as the independent variable.”

“Our finding is consistent with previously published applications of the MAIA (Mehling et al., 2012; Bornemann et al., 2015; Hanley et al., 2017; Verdonk et al., 2021) and the PAS (Cramer et al., 2018; Topino et al., 2020).”

“, 2018), which may mediate the increase in interoceptive awareness observed in expert meditators (Bornemann et al., 2015; Farb et al., 2013; Haase et al., 2016; Kok & Singer, 2017).”

“The MAIA and MAIA-2 have good patterns of convergent and discriminant validity [14, 15], and can distinguish between groups of adults with training in mindfulness techniques [14, 26, 37].”

“The finding that the observing part of body mindfulness did not change during a mindfulness-based intervention is, however, in line with results of the BReSource Project^ (Bornemann et al. 2015): After an average of 113.6 days, participants who took part in a 3-day silent retreat, visited weekly 2-h mindfulness classe…”

“contemplative training [56] which found improvements on five of the eight MAIA scales.”

“The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA; [27]) is a self-report measures and was used to assess several factors of participants’ interoceptive awareness (German version, [35]).”

“One of the central components of MBIs is enhancing attention to bodily processes (51,52), which are known to be strongly linked to emotion and emotion regulation processes.”