Processing of Facial Expressions of Negative Emotion in Alexithymia: The Influence of Temporal Constraint
- 24 May 2005
- journal article
- conference paper
- Published by Wiley in Journal of Personality
- Vol. 73 (4), 1087-1107
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00339.x
Abstract
Alexithymia, a characteristic involving a limited affective vocabulary appears to involve three components: difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking. There is evidence that alexithymic characteristics are associated with differences in emotion information-processing. We examined the role of temporal factors in alexithymic emotion-processing deficits, taking into account the confound between alexithymic characteristics and positive and negative affectivity. One hundred forty-six participants completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. In a signal-detection paradigm, participants judged facial expressions depicting neutral or negative emotions under slow and rapid presentation conditions. The alexithymia component of difficulty in describing feelings was inversely related to the ability to detect expressions of negative emotion in the speeded condition. This relationship was independent of positive and negative affectivity. Alexithymic components positive and negative affectivity were unrelated to response bias. The results emphasize the influence of difficulty describing feelings within the alexithymia construct and its difference from positive and negative affectivity. They suggest that an alexithymic deficit in describing feelings is associated with a deficit in processing negative emotions that is most apparent when processing capacity is challenged. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.Keywords
This publication has 39 references indexed in Scilit:
- The effects of orientation on detection and identification of facial expressions of emotionBritish Journal of Psychology, 2003
- Predicting Cognitive and Social Consequences of Emotional Episodes: The Contribution of Emotional Intensity, the Five Factor Model, and AlexithymiaJournal of Research in Personality, 2000
- Facial Emotion Recognition after Bilateral Amygdala Damage: Differentially Severe Impairment of FearCognitive Neuropsychology, 1996
- Eysenckian personality dimensions and alexithymia: Examining the overlap in terms of perceived autonomic arousalPersonality and Individual Differences, 1996
- Alexithymia and the interpretation of emotion-relevant informationCognition and Emotion, 1994
- Factorial validity of the 20‐item Toronto Alexithymia ScaleEuropean Journal of Personality, 1993
- Health complaints, stress, and distress: Exploring the central role of negative affectivity.Psychological Review, 1989
- Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988
- Negative affectivity: The disposition to experience aversive emotional states.Psychological Bulletin, 1984
- Negative affectivity: The disposition to experience aversive emotional states.Psychological Bulletin, 1984