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.

Memory for emotional information and alexithymia A systematic review

Alexithymia is a deficit in the recognition, expression and regulation of emotions, which has the following features: difficulty in identifying or describing feelings, difficulty distinguishing between feelings and bodily sensations, stringent imaginal processes, and externally oriented cognitive style. This personality trait is associated with many psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders, as well as with risky behaviors.

Affective modulation of target detection in deficit and non-deficit schizophrenia

Emotional deficits are an integral feature of schizophrenia (SZ), but our understanding of these deficits is limited. In the present study, we examined whether the severity of emotional deficits reflects difficulty in the cognitive processing of affectively valenced stimuli. Healthy controls (HC; N = 170) and stable outpatients with SZ (N = 245), characterized as either deficit syndrome (DS; N = 62) or non-deficit syndrome (NDS; N = 183), completed an Affective Go/NoGo task requiring discrimination of positively, negatively or neutrally valenced words. Accuracy (d') and response bias (c) were calculated for each of the three conditions, and a series of ANOVAs were carried out to examine group differences. Examination of accuracy revealed significant main effects of group and valence and a significant valence × group interaction, indicating that while affective valence impacted accuracy for the HC and NDS groups, the DS group maintained the same low level of accuracy across all levels of affective valence. Examination of response bias also revealed significant main effects of group and valence and a significant valence × group interaction. Specifically, within the HC and NDS groups, response bias did not differ between negatively and positively valenced words while response bias in the DS group was lowest for neutral, higher for negatively valenced and higher still for positively valenced words. These results suggest that emotional deficits in DS may be directly related to deficits in processing affective information. Moreover, although this deficit is observed across both positively and negatively valenced stimuli, it is most pronounced for positively valenced material.

The relation of alexithymia, chronic perceived stress and declarative memory performance: Results from the general population

Previous evidence showed associations of alexithymia with altered declarative memory performance. However, these findings were not fully consistent and the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Alexithymic subjects may be at specific risk for chronic psychosocial stress, which in turn represents a predictor for poorer memory performance. We investigated independent and interaction effects of alexithymia and chronic perceived stress on declarative memory performance. Data were used from two independent general-population samples from the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP). In sample 1 (N = 1981), the Auditory Verbal Learning Test, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Screening Scale for Chronic Stress (SSCS) were applied. In sample 2 (N = 3799), the word list of the Nuremburg Age Inventory and TAS-20 were administered to replicate findings. Alexithymia was significantly associated with poorer immediate and delayed word recall. Chronic stress negatively predicted immediate, but not delayed recall. Alexithymia and particularly "Difficulties Identifying Feelings" showed significant associations with chronic perceived stress. Our findings provide clear evidence for an association of alexithymia with impaired declarative memory performance for words. The strong association of alexithymia with perceived chronic stress could contribute to explain the association of alexithymia with stress-related disorders.