Amplification of attentional blink by distress-related facial expressions: Relationships with alexithymia and affectivity

Attentional Processing of Unpleasant Stimuli in Alexithymia

Alexithymia is a multi-faceted personality trait defined by difficulties in identifying and describing emotions and is considered a risk factor for multiple psychiatric disorders. Current alexithymia research debates the type of attention bias involved in the processing of negative emotional information, especially in anxiety-evoking situations that are frequently associated with stress states. Relatedly, this study aims to examine the role of emotional influence on the attentional processing of Taiwanese alexithymic individuals. Using the Chinese version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), individuals with high alexithymia (HA: TAS > 60, n = 26; Mage = 23.36) and individuals with low alexithymia (LA: TAS < 39, n = 26; Mage = 25.76) were recruited. Participants performed an emotional counting Stroop task preceded by anxiety-evoking (threatening and aversive pictures) or neutral pictures. Reaction times (RTs) of the emotional Stroop task were compared between HA and LA groups. Our results demonstrate that compared to individuals with LA, individuals with HA show early avoidance tendency (i.e., allocate less attentional resources to anxiety-evoking stimuli), and that negative affect therefore does not interfere with subsequent attention processing during the Stroop task, resulting in faster RT for unpleasant stimuli (Mthreatening = 683.87, Maversive = 685.87) than neutral stimuli (Mneutral = 695.64) (ps < .05). In addition, the attentional bias toward specific types of negative emotion was not differentiated in individuals with HA (p < .05), suggesting that alexithymic individuals' emotion schemas may be underdeveloped in terms of ability to specify exact emotions. This study provides evidence regarding early sensitization to negative stimuli during information processing, consistent with the notion that alexithymia is related to avoidant emotion regulation processes.

Weaker inhibition after happy faces: evidence from an attentional blink task with emotional and neutral faces

In two experiments using a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) we investigated how emotional and neutral faces (T1) modulate temporal attention for a following neutral face (T2). Typically, performance for T2 is spared when T2 immediately follows T1 (lag 1 sparing) but it is impaired when T2 is presented within 500 ms from T1 (Attentional Blink). Experiment 1 shows a shorter attentional blink following happy faces, relative to neutral and sad faces, which did not differ. Experiment 2 shows a lag 1 sparing only after happy T1s, but not after angry or neutral T1s, and a greater attentional blink following happy and angry T1-faces, compared to neutral T1-faces. Results indicate that happy faces exert different effects on temporal attention than negative (angry or sad) faces. Findings are discussed in terms of an interplay of resource depletion, due to emotional salience, and emotion-specific inhibitory mechanisms.

Alexithymia increases effects of ego-depletion

Alexithymia is associated with deficiencies to identify, describe and express emotions, paucity of fantasies and an externally oriented cognitive style. The current studies provide evidence that alexithymia is also related to self-regulation processes and exacerbates effects of ego-depletion, a state where self-regulation resources are reduced due to previous acts of self-regulation. In Study 1, ego-depletion effects of a handgrip task on pain tolerance were increased by alexithymia. In Study 2, an emotion suppression task showed stronger effects of ego-depletion on a Stroop task in participants high rather than low in alexithymia, but only after suppression of emotions induced by negative and not positive pictures. The results imply that alexithymia increases susceptibility to ego-depletion effects, that consumption of self-regulatory resources has stronger consequences for people high in alexithymia and that they should experience special support in ways to replenish self-regulation resources.

Cognitive-emotional processing in alexithymia: an integrative review

Alexithymia is a multifaceted personality construct characterised by difficulties identifying one's feelings and distinguishing them from bodily sensations, difficulties describing one's feelings to others, and an externally oriented cognitive style. Over the past 25 years, a burgeoning body of research has examined how alexithymia moderates processing at the cognition-emotion interface. We review the findings in five domains: attention, appraisals, memory, language, and behaviours. The preponderance of studies linked alexithymia with deficits in emotion processing, which was apparent across all domains, except behaviours. All studies on behaviours and a proportion of studies in other domains demonstrated emotional over-responding. Analysis at the facet level revealed deficits in memory and language that are primarily associated with externally oriented thinking, while over-responding was most often linked to difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings. The review also found evidence for contextual modulation: The pattern of deficits and over-responding was not restricted to emotional contexts but also occurred in neutral contexts, and in some circumstances, emotional over-responding in alexithymia was beneficial. Taken together, this review highlights alexithymia as a central personality dimension in the interplay between cognition and emotion.

Alexithymia and automatic processing of facial emotions: behavioral and neural findings

BACKGROUND

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings, an externally oriented style of thinking, and a reduced inclination to imagination. Previous research has shown deficits in the recognition of emotional facial expressions in alexithymia and reductions of brain responsivity to emotional stimuli. Using an affective priming paradigm, we investigated automatic perception of facial emotions as a function of alexithymia at the behavioral and neural level. In addition to self-report scales, we applied an interview to assess alexithymic tendencies.

RESULTS

During 3 T fMRI scanning, 49 healthy individuals judged valence of neutral faces preceded by briefly shown happy, angry, fearful, and neutral facial expressions. Alexithymia was assessed using the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) and the Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA). As expected, only negative correlations were found between alexithymic features and affective priming. The global level of self-reported alexithymia (as assessed by the TAS-20 and the BVAQ) was found to be related to less affective priming owing to angry faces. At the facet level, difficulties identifying feelings, difficulties analyzing feelings, and impoverished fantasy (as measured by the BVAQ) were correlated with reduced affective priming due to angry faces. Difficulties identifying feelings (BVAQ) correlated also with reduced affective priming due to fearful faces and reduced imagination (TSIA) was related to decreased affective priming due to happy faces. There was only one significant correlation between alexithymia dimensions and automatic brain response to masked facial emotions: TAS-20 alexithymia correlated with heightened brain response to masked happy faces in superior and medial frontal areas.

CONCLUSIONS

Our behavioral results provide evidence that alexithymic features are related in particular to less sensitivity for covert facial expressions of anger. The perceptual alterations could reflect impaired automatic recognition or integration of social anger signals into judgemental processes and might contribute to the problems in interpersonal relationships associated with alexithymia. Our findings suggest that self-report measures of alexithymia may have an advantage over interview-based tests as research tools in the field of emotion perception at least in samples of healthy individuals characterized by rather low levels of alexithymia.

The influence of alexithymia on memory for emotional faces and realistic social interactions

High levels of alexithymia are typically associated with impaired memory for emotional, but not neutral words. We conducted two experimental studies to establish if this effect generalises to non-verbal socially relevant stimuli. Thirty-nine female undergraduates (Study 1) viewed faces with different expressions (neutral, angry, happy or sad) and 38 female students (Study 2) viewed videos of realistic social interactions (featuring anger, happiness, sadness or neutral affect). Participants were asked to identify the emotion portrayed and were subsequently given an intentional recognition memory test for the stimuli. They also completed self-report measures of alexithymia and mood (depression & anxiety). In Study 1, memory for emotional (especially angry), but not neutral faces was negatively related to the "difficulty describing feelings" facet of alexithymia. In Study 2, memory for emotional (particularly those featuring anger), but not neutral videos was negatively related to the "difficulty identifying feelings" and "externally oriented thinking" facets of alexithymia. In both studies, these memory deficits were independent of the effects of age and mood. Furthermore, the deficits appear to be most evident in the conscious recollection of the emotional stimuli. Our findings confirm that the memory deficit for emotional words in alexithymia generalises to important non-verbal socially relevant stimuli.

Effect of emotions on temporal attention

Emotions play a significant role in guiding everyday actions and strongly interact with attention. The processing of emotional information over time and the influence of attention on such processing has been studied through the phenomenon of attentional blink using rapid serial visual presentations (RSVP) tasks. This chapter discusses the interaction between temporal attention and the type of emotional information (words, scenes, and facial expressions) presented during or before the RSVP stream. The findings show that the affective content and the arousal value of the emotional stimuli presented as first target, second target, or both affects the magnitude and the duration of the blink window. In addition, modulation of emotional context or presentation of emotions in the RSVP stream as task irrelevant distractors also influenced attentional blink. Further, this chapter discusses different models and theories of attentional blink and attempts to explain the emotional effects. The chapter concludes with possible scope for future studies.

Alexithymia and automatic processing of emotional stimuli: a systematic review

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in recognizing and verbalizing emotions and the utilization of a cognitive style that is oriented toward external events, rather than intrapsychic experiences. Alexithymia is considered a vulnerability factor influencing onset and course of many psychiatric disorders. Even though emotions are, in general, elicited involuntarily and emerge without conscious effort, it is surprising that little attention in etiological considerations concerning alexithymia has been given to deficits in automatic emotion processing and their neurobiological bases. In this article, results from studies using behavioral or neurobiological research methods were systematically reviewed in which automatic processing of external emotional information was investigated as a function of alexithymia in healthy individuals. Twenty-two studies were identified through a literature search of Psycinfo, PubMed, and Web of Science databases from 1990 to 2016. The review reveals deficits in the automatic processing of emotional stimuli in alexithymia at a behavioral and neurobiological level. The vast majority of the reviewed studies examined visual processing. The alexithymia facets externally oriented thinking and difficulties identifying feelings were found to be related to impairments in the automatic processing of threat-related facial expressions. Alexithymic individuals manifest low reactivity to barely visible negative emotional stimuli in brain regions responsible for appraisal, encoding, and affective response, e.g. amygdala, occipitotemporal areas, and insula. Against this background, it appears plausible to assume that deficits in automatic emotion processing could be factors contributing to alexithymic personality characteristics. Directions for future research on alexithymia and automatic emotion perception are suggested.

Painful faces-induced attentional blink modulated by top-down and bottom-up mechanisms

Pain-related stimuli can capture attention in an automatic (bottom–up) or intentional (top–down) fashion. Previous studies have examined attentional capture by pain-related information using spatial attention paradigms that involve mainly a bottom–up mechanism. In the current study, we investigated the pain information-induced attentional blink (AB) using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task, and compared the effects of task-irrelevant and task-relevant pain distractors. Relationships between accuracy of target identification and individual traits (i.e., empathy and catastrophizing thinking about pain) were also examined. The results demonstrated that task-relevant painful faces had a significant pain information-induced AB effect, whereas task-irrelevant faces showed a near-significant trend of this effect, supporting the notion that pain-related stimuli can influence the temporal dynamics of attention. Furthermore, we found a significant negative correlation between response accuracy and pain catastrophizing score in task-relevant trials. These findings suggest that active scanning of environmental information related to pain produces greater deficits in cognition than does unintentional attention toward pain, which may represent the different ways in which healthy individuals and patients with chronic pain process pain-relevant information. These results may provide insight into the understanding of maladaptive attentional processing in patients with chronic pain.