Embodied empathy and abstract concepts' concreteness: Evidence from contemplative practices

Interoception is a perceptual process of gathering information on the physiological and functional state of the body. It is thought to underlie different affective and social processes such as emotional regulation, self-other distinction, understanding of others' emotions and, more generally, to support psychophysiological wellbeing. Recent studies have suggested that interoception plays an important role in the embodiment of abstract concepts as well, thus providing a link between perception of bodily signals and conceptual representations. Considering that contemplative practices such as meditation and mindfulness-based practices usually engage the practitioner in a focus on bodily sensations, contemplative practices are thought to foster enhanced bodily awareness and empathic behaviors through modulation of interoceptive functions, leading practitioners to have aa more embodied experience of the world. In the current study, we compared a group of practitioners (N = 66) with a matched control group of non-practitioners, adopting self-report questionnaires examining interoceptive sensibility, empathy, and perceptual components of conceptual representations. Differences between the two groups were found, with practitioners showing greater interoceptive sensibility, greater empathy and overall greater perceptual experiences for both abstract and concrete concepts. However, a mediation analysis showed that interoceptive sensibility was observed to affect empathy through mediation of interoceptive components of conceptual representations only in the non-practitioners group. Considering that practitioners are trained to “ground” their experience in bodily sensations, this study suggests that embodying experiences in interoceptive sensations may be a crucial gateway to reach higher states of consciousness characterized by greater bodily sensibility and enhanced empathy.