It's not necessarily "more heat" to ignite. It requires more input energy to break the molecular bonds of the longer hydrocarbon chains in the fuel in order to ignite. That input energy is heat. One way you add that energy in is by advancing the ignition timing, which increases combustion pressures, and thanks to the ideal gas law - temperatures. That is why high performance engines that require premium fuel have higher compression ratios and more aggressive ignition timing curves. If that same fuel is put into a low compression engine with a lazy timing curve it can cause incomplete combustion, or delayed combustion that leads to lower combustion pressures and slow flame fronts.
Pre-ignition is literally caused by the fuel igniting on it's own, usually due to high tempertures being enough to start breaking the covalent bonds of the shorter molecular chains on it's own. Aka, bang when you don't want bang. This is why higher octane fuel is used, it takes more energy to break those bonds, thus it doesn't ignite as easily in the same conditions.
So yes, it's true.
