The beat of social cognition: Exploring the role of heart rate variability as marker of mentalizing abilities

Łukasz Okruszek*, Kirsty Dolan, Megan Lawrence, Matteo Cella

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)
496 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

There is a long-standing debate on the influence of physiological signals on social behavior. Recent studies suggested that heart rate variability (HRV) may be a marker of social cognitive processes. However, this evidence is preliminary and limited to laboratory studies. In this study, 25 participants were assessed with a social cognition battery and asked to wear a wearable device measuring HRV for 6 consecutive days. The results showed that reduced HRV correlated with higher hostility attribution bias. However, no relationship was found between HRV and other social cognitive measures including facial emotion recognition, theory of mind or emotional intelligence. These results suggest that HRV may be linked to specific social cognitive processes requiring online emotional processing, in particular those related to social threat. These findings are discussed in the context of the neurovisceral integration model.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-5
Number of pages5
JournalSocial Neuroscience
Early online date15 Oct 2016
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 15 Oct 2016

Keywords

  • attribution bias
  • heart rate variability
  • Mentalizing
  • mHealth

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