How to cite#

If you use Cardioception, cite the paper that introduced it with the Heart Rate Discrimination task:

  • Legrand, N., Nikolova, N., Correa, C., Brændholt, M., Stuckert, A., Kildahl, N., Vejlø, M., Fardo, F., & Allen, M. (2022). The heart rate discrimination task: A psychophysical method to estimate the accuracy and precision of interoceptive beliefs. Biological Psychology, 168, 108239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108239

@article{LEGRAND2022108239,
title = {The heart rate discrimination task: A psychophysical method to estimate the accuracy and precision of interoceptive beliefs},
journal = {Biological Psychology},
volume = {168},
pages = {108239},
year = {2022},
issn = {0301-0511},
doi = {10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108239},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051121002325},
author = {Nicolas Legrand and Niia Nikolova and Camile Correa and Malthe Brændholt and Anna Stuckert and Nanna Kildahl and Melina Vejlø and Francesca Fardo and Micah Allen},
keywords = {Heart rate discrimination, Heartbeat tracking, Interoception, Psychophysics, Metacognition},
abstract = {Interoception - the physiological sense of our inner bodies - has risen to the forefront of psychological and psychiatric research. Much of this research utilizes tasks that attempt to measure the ability to accurately detect cardiac signals. Unfortunately, these approaches are confounded by well-known issues limiting their validity and interpretation. At the core of this controversy is the role of subjective beliefs about the heart rate in confounding measures of interoceptive accuracy. Here, we recast these beliefs as an important part of the causal machinery of interoception, and offer a novel psychophysical “heart rate discrimination“ method to estimate their accuracy and precision. By applying this task in 223 healthy participants, we demonstrate that cardiac interoceptive beliefs are more biased, less precise, and are associated with poorer metacognitive insight relative to an exteroceptive control condition. Our task, provided as an open-source python package, offers a robust approach to quantifying cardiac beliefs.}
}

The software#

To refer to the software itself, or to a specific version, cite its Zenodo archive. The concept DOI, 10.5281/zenodo.22139105, always resolves to the latest release; each release also has a DOI of its own, listed on the Zenodo page.

@software{cardioception,
author = {Micah Allen and Nicolas Legrand and {Embodied Computation Group, Aarhus University}},
title = {Cardioception},
version = {1.0.0},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.22139105},
url = {https://github.com/embodied-computation-group/Cardioception}
}

The other tasks#

For a task other than the HRD, cite the method it implements as well:

Task

Cite

Heartbeat Counting

Schandry [1981]; Dale and Anderson [1978]

Phase Adjustment Task

Plans et al. [2021]; Hodgetts et al. [2026] for the ECG version; Palmer et al. [2026] for the scoring

Heartbeat Synchrony Discrimination

Brener et al. [1993] for the method it makes adaptive. The HSD itself has no paper yet; cite the software

The analysis models#

If you analyze HRD data with the hierarchical models and priors of the Hierarchical Interoception toolbox, as the tutorials do, cite:

  • Courtin, A. S., Ehmsen, J. F., Banellis, L., Fardo, F., & Allen, M. G. (2026). Hierarchical Bayesian modeling of interoceptive psychophysics. Behavior Research Methods, 58(9), 260. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-026-03137-3

Systole#

If you also use Systole to read the pulse oximeter (the default in Cardioception) or to analyze physiological recordings, cite:

  • Legrand N., Allen, M., (2022). Systole: A python package for cardiac signal synchrony and analysis. Journal of Open Source Software, 7(69), 3832, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.03832

@article{Legrand2022,
doi = {10.21105/joss.03832},
url = {https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.03832},
year = {2022},
publisher = {The Open Journal},
volume = {7},
number = {69},
pages = {3832},
author = {Nicolas Legrand and Micah Allen},
title = {Systole: A python package for cardiac signal synchrony and analysis},
journal = {Journal of Open Source Software}
}

Publications using the HRD#

If your work is missing, open an issue or a pull request and we will add it.

  • Banellis, L., Nikolova, N., Ehmsen, J. F., Courtin, A. S., Vejlø, M., Tyrer, A., Böhme, R. A., Bavato, F., Hoogervorst, K., Fardo, F., & Allen, M. G. (2026). Interoceptive performance is unrelated to mental health symptoms in a large multi-domain psychophysical investigation. Nature Mental Health, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00688-4

  • Courtin, A. S., Ehmsen, J. F., Banellis, L., Fardo, F., & Allen, M. G. (2026). Hierarchical Bayesian modeling of interoceptive psychophysics. Behavior Research Methods, 58(9), 260. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-026-03137-3

  • Desdentado, L., Allen, M. G., Schultze, J., Banellis, L., Navarro-Siurana, J., Nikolova, N., Baños, R. M., & Pollatos, O. (2026). Cardiac interoception in action: Modulation after a stress induction with a speech task. Biological Psychology, 205, 109228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2026.109228

  • Jeganathan, J., Campbell, M. E. J., Legrand, N., Allen, M., & Breakspear, M. (2025). Aberrant cardiac interoception in psychosis. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 51(1), 208–216. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbae078

  • Tyrer, A., Ehmsen, J. F., Hoogervorst, K., Nikolova, N., Pando-Naude, V., Steenkjær, C. H., Courtin, A. S., Fardo, F., Hauser, T., Bavato, F., & Allen, M. (2025). Peripheral beta-blockade differentially enhances cardiac and respiratory interoception. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.28.640776

  • Leganes-Fonteneau, M. (2024). Alcohol effects on interoception shape expectancies and subjective effects: A registered report using the heart rate discrimination task. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 59(4), agae025. https://doi.org/10.1093/alcalc/agae025