The Effectiveness of Brief Meditation Assisted with Cardiac Biofeedback on Interoceptive Accuracy, Sensibility and Awareness: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Konrad Rudnicki, Luna Schepers, Koen Rummens, Glen Joris, Karolien Poels
Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback July 11, 2025 DOI: 10.1007/s10484-025-09728-8 via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractA two-week randomized controlled trial with 105 novice meditators compared cardiac biofeedback-assisted meditation, app-based meditation, and a non-meditating control group. Interoceptive awareness increased in all three groups from pre- to post-test, while interoceptive sensibility showed no change. Interoceptive accuracy improved only in the two meditation conditions, and only among participants who reported a positive user experience with their meditation devices. The findings suggest that brief meditation sessions can enhance interoceptive accuracy, but the benefit depends on the user's subjective experience with the technology.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Randomized controlled trial Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 105 |
| Population | Participants with no prior meditation experience |
| Interventions | cardiac biofeedback-assisted meditation app-based meditation |
| Duration | 2-week intervention |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Interoceptive accuracy Interoceptive awareness Interoceptive sensibility User experience Meditation practices:brief meditation |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key finding | Interoceptive accuracy improved in the two meditating conditions, but only among participants with positive user experience with their meditation devices. |
Abstract
The growing popularity of application-based meditation has driven the development of new technological features in this field such as the use of cardiac biofeedback, aimed at helping users train their attention to interoceptive stimuli while meditating. However, despite the innovativeness of this approach, the effectiveness of cardiac biofeedback-assisted meditation in enhancing interoception and its specific advantages in this context remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether a limited number of brief meditation sessions enhanced with cardiac biofeedback improves interoceptive accuracy, sensibility, and awareness more effectively than only using a meditation application. A randomized controlled trial of a 2-week intervention was conducted with participants who had no prior meditation experience (N = 105) assigned into one of three groups: a cardiac biofeedback-assisted meditation group, an app-based meditation group and a non-meditating control group. Interoceptive accuracy, sensibility and awareness were measured using the Heartbeat Discrimination Task. The findings indicated that interoceptive awareness increased from pre- to post-test across all participants, including the control group. No changes were observed in interoceptive sensibility. However, interoceptive accuracy improved in the two meditating conditions, but only among participants with positive user experience with their meditation devices.