Interoceptive sensibility is associated with the temporal update of body position perception

Body representation is shaped by integrating information from various sensory modalities. This study investigated the relationship between age-related changes in the visuo-proprioceptive integration of body representation and interoceptive ability. Results showed that older adults demonstrated a greater proprioceptive drift than younger counterparts. Further, the results revealed that younger adults’ proprioceptive drift tended to diminish as time elapsed; conversely, older adults did not experience any reduction. No discrepancies were detected between age groups on any interoceptive abilities. However, all participants exhibited a significant positive correlation between their interoceptive sensibility and the degree of body position perception update. Therefore, it can be concluded that the higher their interoceptive sensibility, the more likely it is that participants experience body position perception update. These results suggest that interoceptive ability is associated with the update process of body position perception but does not explain the gap between age groups.