This study investigated the effect of interoceptive attention on emotional responses during illness imagery, and the moderating role of illness anxiety. 101 students (81 female; 18-35 years old) with low, moderate and high levels of illness anxiety had to imagine personally relevant illness scenarios and standardized fearful, joyful and neutral scenarios, after undergoing an attention manipulation to direct their attention towards interoceptive or exteroceptive stimuli. Emotional responses assessed included self-reports of arousal, valence and somatic sensations, and psychophysiological measures of heart rate reactivity and variability, skin conductance level, and facial electromyography. Findings showed increased reports of emotional arousal, negative affect and somatic symptoms, accompanied by negative emotion expressions, but a hypo-arousal physiological response pattern (i.e. low heart rate reactivity) during illness imagery after interoceptive attention, irrespective of illness anxiety levels. Under directed attention, the observed emotional response to illness imagery may increase the risk for developing and perpetuating illness anxiety.

中文翻译：

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年轻人对疾病意象的情绪反应：注意躯体感觉和疾病焦虑水平的影响

本研究调查了内感受注意对疾病意象期间情绪反应的影响，以及疾病焦虑的调节作用。101 名学生（81 名女性；18-35 岁）具有低、中和高水平的疾病焦虑，在进行注意力操纵以将注意力转向内感受或内感受后，必须想象与个人相关的疾病情景和标准化的恐惧、快乐和中性情景。外感刺激。评估的情绪反应包括唤醒、效价和躯体感觉的自我报告，以及心率反应性和变异性、皮肤电导水平和面部肌电图的心理生理学测量。调查结果显示，情绪唤起、负面情绪和躯体症状的报告有所增加，并伴有负面情绪表达，但是，无论疾病焦虑水平如何，在内感受性注意后疾病意象期间出现低唤醒生理反应模式（即低心率反应）。在定向关注下，观察到的对疾病意象的情绪反应可能会增加发展和延续疾病焦虑的风险。