Department of Psychology, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China.
Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Cereb Cortex. 2024 Mar 1;34(3). doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhae071.
Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties in emotional information processing. However, the underlying reasons for emotional processing deficits in alexithymia are not fully understood. The present study aimed to investigate the mechanism underlying emotional deficits in alexithymia. Using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, we recruited college students with high alexithymia (n = 24) or low alexithymia (n = 24) in this study. Participants judged the emotional consistency of facial expressions and contextual sentences while recording their event-related potentials. Behaviorally, the high alexithymia group showed longer response times versus the low alexithymia group in processing facial expressions. The event-related potential results showed that the high alexithymia group had more negative-going N400 amplitudes compared with the low alexithymia group in the incongruent condition. More negative N400 amplitudes are also associated with slower responses to facial expressions. Furthermore, machine learning analyses based on N400 amplitudes could distinguish the high alexithymia group from the low alexithymia group in the incongruent condition. Overall, these findings suggest worse facial emotion perception for the high alexithymia group, potentially due to difficulty in spontaneously activating emotion concepts. Our findings have important implications for the affective science and clinical intervention of alexithymia-related affective disorders.
述情障碍的特点是情绪信息处理困难。然而，述情障碍中情绪处理缺陷的根本原因尚不完全清楚。本研究旨在探讨述情障碍中情绪缺陷的机制。本研究使用多伦多述情障碍量表-20，招募了高述情障碍（n=24）和低述情障碍（n=24）的大学生。参与者在记录事件相关电位的同时，判断面部表情和语境句子的情绪一致性。行为上，高述情障碍组在处理面部表情时的反应时间长于低述情障碍组。事件相关电位结果表明，在不一致条件下，高述情障碍组的 N400 振幅比低述情障碍组更负。更负的 N400 振幅也与对面部表情的反应较慢有关。此外，基于 N400 振幅的机器学习分析可以在不一致条件下区分高述情障碍组和低述情障碍组。总的来说，这些发现表明高述情障碍组对面部情绪的感知能力较差，这可能是由于自发激活情绪概念的能力较差。我们的研究结果对述情障碍相关情感障碍的情感科学和临床干预具有重要意义。
