Heart Talk: Emotional Inner Speech Increases Heart Rate.

ABSTRACT: In two preregistered experiments (exp.1: n = 44; exp.2: n = 46), we investigated whether emotional inner speech influences heart rate. Participants were asked to engage in sessions of either: self-encouraging positive inner speech, self-degrading negative inner speech, or inner counting while their heart rate was monitored. Participants were lying on a bed and asked to remain still during the inner speech trials. Experiment 1 consisted of two negative, two positive, and four counting trials. Experiment 2 had four trials of each type. Trials lasted 180 s in Experiment 1 and had a mixed duration in Experiment 2 (40-70 s) to limit predictability. Motion tracking was applied to control for body movement. Median heart rate across each inner speech session was analyzed, and a significant differe

SUBMITTER: Wallentin M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12409695 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature