The Heartbeat Detection Fallacy

Many interoception studies measure one thing: can you detect your heartbeat? If you can, you have "high interoceptive awareness." If you can't, you're supposedly bad at sensing your body. But you have 47+ structurally distinct types of sensory receptors feeding information from inside your body. Baroreceptors, chemoreceptors, thermoreceptors, nociceptors, mechanoreceptors of multiple varieties – each transmitting different kinds of data. Judging "interoceptive skill" by heartbeat detection alone is like measuring how you experience the external world by hearing alone. What if the person is deaf but has extraordinarily good vision? Hmph!

Interoception is my superpower. I can sense subtle shifts in my breathing, my fascia tension, my organ movement. And I rarely detect my heartbeat. That measurement tool is absurd.