认知与发展心理学研究室知识库

情绪调节是人类特有的心理能力，与个体心理健康水平密切关联。良好的情绪调节能力有助于个体更好地应对压力，较快适应环境变化以及维持情绪稳定。最近的研究证据表明，情绪识别、理解与深度加工均与个体对身体内部感觉信号的察觉、编码、整合和调节有关。这种基于身体信号的内感受能力与情绪调节的 关系引起了学者们的广泛关注。然而，关于内感受是否直接影响情绪调节，其背后机制是什么？这些科学问题还未获得准确解答。迷走神经是副交感神经系统的重要构成部分，担任在大脑和身体各器官间传递信息的角色，对内环境的平衡与稳定、生理心理功能的调控都起着关键作用。虽然有零星横断面研究发现了内感 受、情绪调节和迷走神经活动之间的关联，但目前尚无研究探察内感受变化是否能直接影响负性情绪调节以及该影响发生的生理机制。因此，本研究采用心理学行为任务和生理学手段，以内感受准确性对负性情绪调节的影响为切入点，通过三项研究系统探究内感受准确性与情绪调节之间的关系及迷走神经活动在其中 的作用。

研究一采用自行编制的心跳辨别任务，考察个体内感受准确性水平和负性情绪调节表现之间的关联关系。招募健康被试100名（50 名女性 50 名男性），对其内感受准确性和负性情绪调节水平进行测评。相关分析和回归分析发现，个体的内感受准确性水平与负性情绪调节表现呈正相关关系。根据心跳辨别指数得分，所有被试划分为高内感受准确性组（前 30%）和低内感受准确性组（后 30%）后，结果发现，在面对负性情绪时，高内感受准确性个体的情绪调节表现优于低内感受准确性个体。此外，个体的静息期迷走神经活动在内感受准确性和情绪调节表现之间起到调节作用。

研究二采用随机对照实验，研发基于心脏内感受的学习任务，探究针对内感受准确性的行为干预对负性情绪调节的影响，考察内感受准确性与负性情绪调节表现之间的因果关系。招募被试70名，随机分为干预组（35人）和对照组（35人）。干预组接受自主设计的“10 分钟内感受学习”训练，训练包括感知心跳阶 段和反馈学习阶段；对照组则静坐休息10分钟。干预前后均采用“心跳辨别后 的情绪调节测评”评估两组被试的负性情绪调节表现。结果发现，心脏内感受学习任务为改变个体内感受准确性的有效任务。组别与唤醒度评分变化的交互作用显著，干预组对负性情绪图片的唤醒度评分变化值显著降低，而对照组没有差异，内感受干预增强了个体情绪调节能力。

研究三采用生理电刺激的干预手段，使用交叉实验设计，主要探究经皮耳迷走神经电刺激（taVNS）对内感受准确性和负性情绪调节的影响，考察迷走神经在内感受准确性影响负性情绪调节中的作用机制。招募36名健康成年人（18名男性，18名女性）作为研究对象，进行被试内和真、假刺激的随机对照。研究三进行了两次实验，每次实验间隔一周，一次实施 25 分钟的 taVNS 干预，另一次实施相同时间的假刺激干预。两次实验均采集了被试的心率变异性（HRV）数据。结果显示，taVNS 显著提高了个体的HRV，同时显著增加了内感受准确性和情绪调节水平。此外，研究还发现，内感受准确性在刺激类与负性情绪调节效应之间起到中介作用。

综上，本论文通过相关研究、行为干预和电生理干预，使用心率变异性这一与情绪密切相关的生理指标，全面探究了内感受准确性与负性情绪调节之间的关系。研究发现内感受能够通过短时干预实现有效变化，这种变化直接增加了个体的情绪调节能力；经皮耳迷走神经电刺激可通过改变个体内感受水平，从而提升情绪调节水平。这些发现将有助于深入理解内感受准确性对负性情绪调节的影响，同时为情绪调节困难的干预训练提供新的科学启示。

Emotion regulation is a unique psychological ability of human beings, which directly affects the level of mental health of individuals. The ability to regulate negative emotions helps individuals to better cope with stress, adapt to environmental changes, and maintain emotional stability. Several previous clinical studies have found that emotion dysregulation is associated with a variety of mood disorders. It is noteworthy that the recognition, understanding, and deep processing of emotions are closely related to the perception, encoding, integration, and regulation of sensory signals within the body. In recent years, the relationship between this body-signal-based interoceptive ability and emotion regulation has attracted a lot of attention from scholars. The mechanism behind how interoception affects emotion regulation has yet to be scientifically answered. The vagus nerve is an important component of the parasympathetic nervous system, serving as a transmitter of information between the brain and various organs of the body, and playing a key role in the balance and stability of the internal environment. Although cross-sectional studies have found associations between interoception, vagus nerve activity, and emotion regulation, no research has explored whether changes in interoception and vagal nerve activity can directly affect negative emotion regulation and physiological mechanisms. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore the relationship and interaction between interoceptive accuracy, vagal nerve activity, and negative emotion regulation through three studies.

Study 1 applied a self-developed heartbeat discrimination task to examine the association between intra-individual levels of feeling accuracy and negative emotion regulation performance. One hundred healthy subjects were recruited, and their levels of internal sensory accuracy and negative emotion regulation were measured. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that individuals' level of interoceptive accuracy was positively correlated with negative emotion regulation performance. Subsequently, individuals were divided into a high interoception group (top 30%) and a low interoception group (bottom 30%) based on their heartbeat identification index scores. The results found that when facing negative emotions, individuals with high interoceptive accuracy demonstrated superior emotion regulation performance compared to those with lower interoceptive accuracy. The study discovered that the modulatory influence of an individual’s resting vagus nerve activity bridges the gap between interoceptive accuracy and the performance of emotion regulation.

Study 2 used a randomized controlled experimental approach to develop a cardiac interoception-based learning task to investigate the effects of a behavioral intervention targeting intracardiac perception accuracy on negative emotion regulation, and to examine the causal relationship between intracardiac perception accuracy and negative emotion regulation performance. 70 subjects were recruited and randomly divided into an intervention group and a control group. The intervention group received a self-designed “10-minute interoceptive learning” training, which included a heartbeat perception stage and a feedback learning stage; the control group rested quietly for 10 minutes. “The Emotion Regulation Assessment after Heartbeat Discrimination” was used to evaluate the performance of negative emotion regulation in both groups before and after the intervention. The results showed that compared with before the training, the interoceptive accuracy of the intervention group significantly improved after the training, and the change value of the arousal score for negative emotion pictures also significantly decreased, while there was no difference in the control group.

Study 3 employed a crossover experimental design, primarily investigating the impact of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) on interoceptive accuracy and negative emotion regulation. The study recruits 36 healthy adults as subjects, implementing within-subject randomization and sham stimulation control. The study includes two experiments, one week apart, one with taVNS intervention, and the other with sham stimulation intervention. Stimulation is applied while completing the “Emotion regulation assessment after heartbeat discrimination”, and the stimulation duration is about 25 minutes. The results found that taVNS significantly increased HRV, and significantly changed the subjects’ interoceptive accuracy and negative emotion regulation performance. Further mediation analysis found that interoceptive accuracy plays a mediating role between stimulation type and negative emotion regulation effect.

In summary, this thesis attempts to explore the association between interoceptive accuracy and the regulation of negative emotion through related research, behavioral intervention, and electrophysiological intervention. These findings will help deepen the understanding of the impact of interoceptive accuracy on negative emotion regulation and provide new scientific insights for intervention training for difficult emotion regulation.