Interconnections among self-awareness constructs in schizotypy: The importance of interoceptive sensibility

Interoception involves the sensing, interpreting, and integrating of signals from within the body and mind. Interoception is a central concept to our awareness of bodily sensations and thus can be classified as one form of self-awareness. Differences in other forms of self-awareness, such as alexithymia, cognitive insight, and introspective accuracy, have been observed between those with high and low schizotypy. Given the conceptual similarity in these constructs, understanding inter-relationships across measures of self-awareness will serve to advance our understanding of the concept and its various facets for people with high schizotypy. This study examined the relationships between interoceptive sensibility and other measures of self-awareness, including cognitive insight, alexithymia, and introspective accuracy, in those with and without high schizotypy. Participants from two online recruitment sources (n = 728) completed measures of interoceptive sensibility, alexithymia, cognitive insight, introspective accuracy, and schizotypy. Partial correlations found higher interoceptive sensibility was associated with lower alexithymia and lower schizotypy. Network analysis revealed that three interoceptive subscales, Body Listening, Self-Regulation, and Attention Regulation, as well as the cognitive perceptual subscale of schizotypy, had the greatest influence on the overall model. Network comparison revealed that the Emotional Awareness and Self-Regulation subscales of interoception had the greatest influence on the structures in both schizotypy groups. While both groups had distinct cluster patterns, there were no significant differences in the networks’ edges or centrality. These results add to the growing literature on interoception in schizotypy and suggest that measures of interoception may provide a helpful brief assessment of self-awareness abilities.