Abstract

Panic disorder is distinguished from panic attacks by persistent concern or worry about additional panic attacks or their consequences. Considering persistent worry is pathological and affected by metacognition, the present study aimed to investigate the role of metacognition toward interoception including interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive sensibility. Furthermore, we examined how interoceptive trait prediction error - the difference between interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive sensibility - affects the worries of individuals with a history of panic attacks. For this purpose, 28 undergraduate students who had experienced a panic attack at least once and agreed to participate were assigned to two groups based on the frequency and severity of their worries: the high worry panickers(HWP group; n = 15) and the low worry panickers(LWP group; n = 13). The heartbeat tracking test which asked participants to silently count their perceived heartbeats within a specified time frame was administered. As a result, a significant group difference in interoceptive trait prediction error, but not in interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive sensibility, was found. Specifically, the HWP group overestimated their interoceptive ability whereas the LWP group relatively underestimated it. Across the entire sample, interoceptive trait prediction error and interoceptive accuracy showed a significant relationship with worry. The present study has practical implication in that it experimentally examined the relationship between metacognition in interoception and worries in relation to panic disorder. Finally, further implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research were discussed.