Previous work exploring the interplay between the processing of internal bodily signals and the perception of external events suggests a correlative relationship between both domains. Here, we demonstrate an experimentally induced link between visual perception and the emotional modulation of interoceptive cardiac signals. We pair an emotion repetition-suppression paradigm shown to modulate neural responses to heartbeats with a previously reported visual detection task. Using electrophysiological and cardiac measurements, we show that, relative to alternating facial expressions of emotions, repeating facial expressions evoke stable patterns of cardiac responses and that this iteration of the cardiac response leads to a distinct modulation of the heartbeat evoked potential (HEP) amplitude. Crucially, we were able to modulate the direction of the amplitude change to increase HEP expression in response to repeated emotionally neutral faces and decrease it by repeating angry faces. Visual detection accuracy was significantly higher in repeating, relative to alternating face trials. Furthermore, reduced HEP amplitude to repeated angry faces acted as a direct predictor of subsequently elevated detection performance. Our findings demonstrate that accurate top-down anticipation of the heartbeat signal coincides with enhanced exteroceptive visual perception, particularly in the context of emotional events. Findings hereby highlight the integrated nature of internal and external stimulus processing and implicate predictive interoceptive processes induced by emotions for the conscious perception of sensory input activated from outside of the body. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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感受性心脏对情绪刺激的期望可以预测视觉感知。

先前研究内部身体信号处理与外部事件感知之间相互作用的先前工作表明，这两个域之间存在相关关系。在这里，我们展示了视觉感知与感知性心脏信号的情绪调节之间的实验性联系。我们将情感重复抑制范例与先前报道的视觉检测任务配对，以调节对心跳的神经反应。使用电生理和心脏测量结果，我们发现，相对于情绪交替的面部表情，重复的面部表情唤起稳定的心脏反应模式，并且心脏反应的这种迭代导致对心跳诱发电位（HEP）幅度的明显调节。至关重要的是 我们能够调节幅度变化的方向，以响应反复出现的情绪中性表情来增加HEP表达，并通过重复愤怒的表情来减少其表达。相对于交替的面部试验，视觉检测准确性在重复中明显更高。此外，减少的HEP振幅到重复的愤怒面孔可作为随后提高检测性能的直接预测指标。我们的发现表明，对心跳信号的准确的自上而下的预期与增强的外在性视觉感知相吻合，尤其是在情绪事件的情况下。因此，研究结果突出了内部和外部刺激处理的综合性质，并暗示了由情感诱发的预测性感受性过程，以自觉感知从身体外部激活的感觉输入。