McDonald P W, Prkachin K M
Department of Health Studies, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Psychosom Med. 1990 Mar-Apr;52(2):199-210. doi: 10.1097/00006842-199003000-00007.
The term alexithymia denotes a cluster of traits including a marked difficulty in finding words to describe emotions. Despite a rapidly growing literature, the construct has not been validated adequately. The present study addressed the validity of the construct. Twenty males assessed as alexithymic or not, on the basis of the Schalling-Sifneos Personality Scale, were videotaped during tasks designed to elicit spontaneous and posed facial expressions of emotion. They also rated the emotional impact of the tasks and prototypic displays of emotion. Results showed that alexithymics were comparable to controls in judgments of the impact of provocative slides and in their ability to label posed expressions. With the exception of expressions of anger and happiness, they were also comparable in the ability to pose emotions. Alexithymics showed a deficit in spontaneous displays of negative affect. Results support the validity of the concept and suggest that deficits in nonverbal expression are central to the phenomenon. Implications for conceptualizations of alexithymia and emotion are discussed.
述情障碍这一术语指的是一系列特征，包括在找到描述情感的词汇方面存在明显困难。尽管相关文献迅速增加，但这一概念尚未得到充分验证。本研究探讨了该概念的有效性。根据沙林-西夫neos人格量表，对20名男性进行了是否患有述情障碍的评估，并在旨在引发自发和刻意做出的面部表情的任务过程中对他们进行了录像。他们还对任务的情感影响以及情感的典型表现进行了评分。结果显示，在对刺激性幻灯片的影响判断以及对刻意做出的表情进行标注的能力方面，述情障碍患者与对照组相当。除了愤怒和快乐的表情外，他们在做出情感表情的能力方面也相当。述情障碍患者在自发表达负面情绪方面存在缺陷。研究结果支持了这一概念的有效性，并表明非言语表达缺陷是该现象的核心。文中还讨论了对述情障碍和情感概念化的启示。
