Interoceptive accuracy and panic

Psychophysiological models of panic hypothesize that panickers focus attent ion on and become anxious about the physical sensations associated with pan ic. Attention on internal somatic cues has been labeled interoception. The present study examined the role of physiological arousal and subjective anx iety on interoceptive accuracy. Infrequent panickers and nonanxious partici pants participated in an initial baseline to examine overall interoceptive accuracy. Next, participants ingested caffeine, about which they received e ither safety or no safety information. Using a mental heartbeat tracking pa radigm, participants' count of their heartbeats during specific time interv als were coded based on polygraph measures. Infrequent panickers were more accurate in the perception of their heartbeats than nonanxious participants . Changes in physiological arousal were not associated with increased accur acy on the heartbeat perception task. However, higher levels of self-report ed anxiety were associated with superior performance. (C) 1999 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd. All rights reserved.