Department of Experimental Psychology, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Yale Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, United States.
Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2022 Oct;141:104864. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104864. Epub 2022 Sep 8.
Alexithymia, including the inability to identify and express one's own feelings, is a subclinical condition responsible for some of the socioemotional symptoms seen across a range of psychiatric conditions. The language hypothesis of alexithymia posits a language-mediated disruption in the development of discrete emotion concepts from ambiguous affective states, exacerbating the risk of developing alexithymia in language-impaired individuals. To provide a critical evaluation, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 29 empirical studies of language functioning in alexithymia was performed. A modest association was found between alexithymia and multi-domain language deficits (r = -0.14), including structural language, pragmatics, and propensity to use emotional language. A more theoretically-relevant subsample analysis comparing alexithymia levels in language-impaired and typical individuals revealed larger effects, but a limited number of studies adopted this approach. A synthesis of 11 emotional granularity studies also found an association between alexithymia and reduced emotional granularity (r = -0.10). Language impairments seem to increase the risk of alexithymia. Heterogeneous samples and methods suggest the need for studies with improved alexithymia assessments.
述情障碍，包括无法识别和表达自己的感受，是一种亚临床状况，导致了一系列精神疾病中出现的一些社会情感症状。述情障碍的语言假说假设，在从模糊的情感状态发展离散情感概念的过程中，语言受到干扰，从而增加了语言障碍个体出现述情障碍的风险。为了进行批判性评估，对述情障碍中语言功能的 29 项实证研究进行了系统回顾和荟萃分析。发现述情障碍与多领域语言缺陷（r=-0.14）之间存在适度关联，包括结构语言、语用学和使用情感语言的倾向。对比较语言障碍个体和典型个体的述情障碍水平的更具理论相关性的亚组分析显示出更大的影响，但采用这种方法的研究数量有限。对 11 项情感粒度研究的综合分析也发现述情障碍与情感粒度降低之间存在关联（r=-0.10）。语言障碍似乎增加了出现述情障碍的风险。异质样本和方法表明需要进行改进的述情障碍评估研究。
