General sense of agency mediates the relationship between subjective interoception and mental imagery in aphantasia and hyperfantasia

Interoceptive processes contribute to one’s sense of agency by maintaining a consistent perception of oneself as an active agent. Here we examine whether the relationship between self-reported interoception and mental imagery is mediated by one’s general sense of agency (i.e. ratings of agency across different situations). For individuals within the aphantasia range of imagery (i.e. absent to weak imagery), positive agency correlated positively with imagery vividness, whereas for individuals with very vivid imagery (hyperfantasia), this correlation was negative. Thus, sense of agency plays an important role at the extremes of the imagery spectrum. For both groups, positive agency and interoceptive attention correlated positively. Mediation analyses revealed that the effect of self-reported interoceptive attention on mental imagery was fully mediated by the sense positive agency. In contrast, self-reported interoceptive accuracy correlated positively with negative agency; thus distinct aspects of subjective interoception map to separate aspects of agency. Taken together, these findings indicate that subjective interoception is related to mental imagery via a general sense of agency, particularly at transition points from absent to weak imagery, and from vivid imagery to real perception-like imagery.