The influence of alexithymia on memory for emotional faces and realistic social interactions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21505262 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nathan Ridout (0000-0002-7111-2996, Aston University, corresponding author), Jade Smith (0000-0002-5965-1874, Aston University), Holly Hawkins (Aston University) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 540-558 |
| Publication date | 2021-04-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cognition & Emotion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0269-9931 • E-ISSN: 1464-0600 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02699931.2020.1747991 |
| PMID | 32268841 |
| OpenAlex | W3015258201 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 64 |
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
Alexithymia · Anger · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Emotional expression · Facial expression · Feeling · Happiness · Mood · Recall · Sadness · Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes · Communication · Face Recognition and Perception · Psychology · Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments · Social Psychology
Having no words for feelings
Mental imagery in aesthetic appreciation and the understanding of the self and others
Putting Emotional Memories in Context
“The many faces of sorrow”
Cognitive-emotional processing in alexithymia
Does emotional expression influence face recognition? Re-examining Bruce and Young’s (1986) independence hypothesis
Disorders of Affect Regulation
Enhanced Emotional Memory
Functional aspects of recollective experience
Depression is strongly associated with alexithymia in the general population
The NimStim set of facial expressions
Are affective events richly recollected or simply familiar? The experience and process of recognizing feelings past.
The 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale
Autobiographical memory in suicide attempters.
Cognitive neuroscience of emotional memory
The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale
Memory for emotionally provocative words in alexithymia
Modulation of long-term memory by arousal in alexithymia
Processing of Facial Expressions of Negative Emotion in Alexithymia
Alexithymia, memory of emotion, emotional awareness, and perfectionism
Gaze behavior predicts memory bias for angry facial expressions in stable dysphoria
The role of attention and relatedness in emotionally enhanced memory
Alexithymia and Incidental Learning of Emotional Words
Gender differences in alexithymia
The influence of emotional intensity on facial emotion recognition in disordered eating
Alexithymia and levels of processing
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1.2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |