Effects of Interoceptive/Exteroceptive Attention and Motivation on Visuo-Spatial Perspective-Taking

Interoception is the ability to perceive signals from within the body. The embodiment paradigm states that the sensorimotor systems of the body influence cognitive processes. Thus, it has been assumed that people with better interoception exhibit stronger embodiment effects. Embodied processing can be investigated using visuo-spatial perspective-taking (VPT) task, which is done by mentally stimulating one’s body schema moving in space. The previous experiment studied proposed relations between embodiment involvement during VPT and interoceptive effects using manipulation prior to the VPT task orienting participants' attention either towards or away from the body. However, it has been shown that even when no embodiment involved participants’ VPT performance was generally improved by attention manipulation towards the body. One of the explanations for the unexpected result is that the perceived interoceptive attention task difficulty could enhance motivation to succeed in the subsequent VPT task. The current replication study developed a novel task to orient participants' attention toward the body to test whether it would benefit performance during VPT with embodied simulation. The study also explores whether the perceived difficulty of the attention manipulation on the VPT performance, mediated via success motivation. The results showed a picture opposite to predictions, the interoceptive manipulation decreased VPT performance, and there was no effect of success motivation in the relations between the perceived difficulty and the VPT task. Potential explanations of the studies' results are discussed in line with the current experimental limitations and future directions to address them.