Department of Psychology, School of Life & Health Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Cogn Emot. 2021 May;35(3):540-558. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2020.1747991. Epub 2020 Apr 8.
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.
高程度的述情障碍通常与情绪记忆受损有关，但与中性词无关。我们进行了两项实验研究，以确定这种效应是否适用于非言语的社会相关刺激。39 名女性大学生（研究 1）观看了不同表情（中性、愤怒、快乐或悲伤）的面孔，38 名女性学生（研究 2）观看了真实的社会互动视频（表现出愤怒、快乐、悲伤或中性情绪）。参与者被要求识别所描绘的情绪，然后对这些刺激进行有意识别记忆测试。他们还完成了述情障碍和情绪（抑郁和焦虑）的自我报告测量。在研究 1 中，对情绪（尤其是愤怒）面孔的记忆与述情障碍的“难以描述感受”方面呈负相关，而对中性面孔的记忆则没有。在研究 2 中，对情绪（特别是那些表现出愤怒的情绪）视频的记忆与“难以识别感受”和“外向思维”方面的述情障碍呈负相关，而对中性视频的记忆则没有。在这两项研究中，这些记忆缺陷独立于年龄和情绪的影响。此外，这些缺陷在对情绪刺激的有意识回忆中最为明显。我们的发现证实了述情障碍中对情绪词的记忆缺陷适用于重要的非言语社会相关刺激。
