Costache Mădălina Elena, Gioia Federica, Vanello Nicola, Greco Alberto, Lefebvre François, Capobianco Antonio, Weibel Sébastien, Weiner Luisa
Laboratoire de Psychologie des Cognitions, Faculté de Psychologie, University of Strasbourg, 12 Rue Goethe, 67000, Strasbourg, France.
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 Sep 27. doi: 10.1007/s10803-024-06551-8.
Difficulties in controlling emotions - a proxy for emotion dysregulation (ED)-and difficulties in expressing feelings in words-'absence of emotion labelling' or alexithymia-co-exist in autism and contribute to elevated levels of impulsive and suicidal behaviour. To date, studies linking the two phenomena have relied on retrospective self-reported measures, lacking support for generalizability to real-life situations. The present study investigated in vivo emotion labelling and its impact on emotion control in 29 autistic adults without intellectual disability (ASC) and 28 neurotypical (NT) individuals of similar age, sex, and educational level. Participants were trained in an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to label their emotions, the arousal dimension, and their emotion control via smartphone over a one-week period. Findings showed that the ASC group experienced more instances of 'having an emotion that I cannot name' and, when they were able to label their emotions, they reported higher rates of negative and conflicting (simultaneously positive and negative) emotions. In both groups, the absence of emotion labelling, and intense negative emotions were associated with impaired emotion control. However, the association between lack of emotional awareness-'I have no emotion'-and impaired emotion control was only evident in ASC individuals. Our study highlights a nuanced facet of emotional processing in the ASC population. Further research is needed to gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between ED and alexithymia in autism.
控制情绪困难——这是情绪调节障碍（ED）的一个指标——以及用言语表达感受困难——“缺乏情绪标注”或述情障碍——在自闭症中共存，并导致冲动和自杀行为水平升高。迄今为止，将这两种现象联系起来的研究依赖于回顾性自我报告测量方法，缺乏对推广到现实生活情境的支持。本研究调查了29名无智力障碍的自闭症成年人（ASC）和28名年龄、性别和教育水平相似的神经典型（NT）个体的实时情绪标注及其对情绪控制的影响。参与者在生态瞬时评估（EMA）中接受培训，通过智能手机在一周时间内标注自己的情绪、唤醒维度和情绪控制情况。研究结果表明，ASC组经历了更多“有我无法命名的情绪”的情况，并且当他们能够标注自己的情绪时，他们报告的负面和冲突（同时为正面和负面）情绪发生率更高。在两组中，缺乏情绪标注以及强烈的负面情绪都与情绪控制受损有关。然而，缺乏情绪意识——“我没有情绪”——与情绪控制受损之间的关联仅在ASC个体中明显。我们的研究突出了ASC人群情绪加工的一个细微方面。需要进一步研究以更深入地了解自闭症中ED和述情障碍之间的复杂关系。
