Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Individual Differences in Autonomic Self‐Perception

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the role of autonomic activity and its perception in the experience and expression of emotion. A series of experiments is described in which an objective methodology for the assessment of heartbeats is developed and used to test a variety of hypotheses about the relationships among heartbeat perception, arousal, and emotion. The data indicate that there are substantial individual differences in the ability to learn to detect heartbeats. Primary among these individual differences is gender–males appear to learn the discrimination more readily than females. Further, when arousal is induced either by physical or psychological stimuli, accuracy of heartbeat detection is increased. The accuracy of heartbeat detection is also related to self‐report of affective experience, and may be subserved by functions of the right cerebral hemisphere. The role of cardiodynamics in heartbeat perception is also discussed.