Understanding your own body signals can also relieve symptoms of serious illnesses such as schizophrenia or autism.
The key to telepathy lies … in the ability to listen to your own heart. The researchers found that those who better read their own heartbeats were able to more accurately judge the emotional state of others.
Can you hear your heart beating? Or maybe you are acutely hungry, thirsty, or in pain? If so, then you are susceptible to interoception - the sensitivity of internal organs. It is believed that in order for any emotion to appear, we must first interpret the inner state. Therefore, for example, when we see a mad dog, we experience fear only after realizing that our heart rate has increased or we notice that our palms are sweating.
Psychologist Jeff Bird from Oxford University in the UK conducted an experiment: he asked 72 volunteers to count their heartbeats without putting their fingers on the pulsation of the radial artery.
The participants were then shown several videos of people in different states. After each clip, they passed the test with different answer options. He was supposed to describe how volunteers assess the mental state of people.
For example, in one of the videos, a guy named Tom tried to flirt with a girl named Gemma, and she, in turn, was interested in the shy guy Barry. Participants were asked questions regarding the state of a particular character in the video - "Is Gemma annoyed?" It turned out that those who more accurately calculated their own heartbeats were better at handling these kinds of questions.
Interestingly, there is no connection between interoceptive abilities and the accuracy of answers to questions in theory of mind (for example, "What does Barry think Gemma thinks about Tom's intentions?"). Thus, psychologists have found that our ability to interpret the signals of our own body helps to better understand the thoughts of other people, if they are based on emotions.
Byrd also believes that interoceptive difficulties (that is, poor understanding of one's body signals) may play a role in the development of a number of symptoms in people with autism and schizophrenia. For example, some people with autism recognize loud sounds and bright colors as “sad”. Interoceptive abilities are likely to help relieve symptoms of serious ailments such as schizophrenia or autism.
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Christina Yeldzarova