If neuroception is shaped within safety, it adapts to monitor cues in appropriate ways and activate defense behaviors only when necessary. But when neuroception is shaped within unsafe, unpredicatable or unsupportive environments, the radar will lean toward protection. In this event, there will often be a mismatch between a person’s autonomic state and the actual enviroment or situation around them.

Shaped in an environment that is safe and supportive, the system reads cues accurately and inhibits defense systems in safe environments or activates them when there is risk (Porges, 2004). Shaped in an environment that is unpredictable and filled with unexpected events, an environment in which you feel unsafe or unseen, neuroception is biased toward protection which leads to a mismatch between autonomic state and actual safety or risk (Porges, 2015a). (Location 545)