Interoception, alexithymia, and motor congruency: Psychological drivers of body ownership in virtual reality.

People with alexithymia, a trait involving difficulty identifying and describing emotions, tend to have poorer interoception—the ability to perceive internal bodily signals. Interoception helps form a coherent sense of self and contributes to body ownership, the feeling that one's body belongs to oneself. In an immersive virtual reality experiment, motor synchrony between virtual and physical movements increased body ownership. Alexithymia was negatively related to interoceptive accuracy, and interoceptive accuracy showed a trend-level positive association with body ownership when movements were aligned. Due to a modest sample size of 26 and reliance on a single cardiac measure, these preliminary results need replication.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Alexithymia, a personality trait marked by difficulty in identifying and describing emotions, is associated with differences in interoception - the ability to perceive and interpret internal bodily signals. Interoception plays a key role in forming a coherent sense of self and contributes to body ownership, the feeling that one's body belongs to oneself. This study explored how interoception and alexithymia influence body ownership in immersive virtual reality, particularly under conditions of motor cue congruency. Findings revealed a negative relationship between alexithymia and interoception, and a positive effect of motor synchrony on body ownership. Interoceptive accuracy (assessed via the heartbeat counting task) showed a trend-level positive association with body ownership when virtual and physical movements were aligned. Given the modest sample size (N = 26) and reliance on a single cardiac interoceptive measure, findings should be considered preliminary and warrant replication in larger, multi-method studies.