Sensory and affective aspects of the perception of respiratory resistance

Abstract

Perception of airway resistance has a sensory and an afective aspect, i.e., perceived resistance and unpleasantness, respec tively. The current study aimed to shed more light on the relationship of these aspects, as well as their malleability to trait-like aspects of body awareness. In a laboratory study, 71 young participants completed two respiratory resistive load discrimina tion tasks relying on sensory and afective evaluation, respectively, and flled out questionnaires assessing somatosensory amplifcation, anxiety sensitivity, somatic symptoms distress, and breath awareness. Frequentist and Bayesian statistical analysis revealed no diferences in discrimination accuracy with respect to the sensory and afective aspect of perceived resist ance. Psychological traits were not associated with accuracy scores. In conclusion, afective evaluation of respiratory load is as accurate as sensory evaluation. Neither sensory not afective accuracy is infuenced by various aspects of body awareness.