Event-related brain potentials reveal differences in emotional processing in alexithymia

ABSTRACT

The inability to recognise and describe emotions in the self is known as Alexithymia. In the present study we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the locus of processing emotional differences in alexithymia. We tested men, both those scoring high (score > 61) and controls who scored low (score < 51) on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 on an emotional face discrimination task. We assessed three ERP components: P1 (an index of early perceptual processing), N170 (an index of early facial processing) and P3 (an index of late attentional suppression). While controls showed a stronger P3 effect for angry faces relative to happy and neutral faces, Alexithymic men showed no significant differences in P3 across emotions. Alexithymic men showed delayed P1 and N170 amplitudes compared to controls. These results suggest that the locus of processing differences between alexithymic men and controls occur both early in perceptual processing and later in conscious processing.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional valence
• alexithymia
• ERPs
• repression
• suppression

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Kathleen Alto, Stefan Jadaszewski, Baron Rogers, and Shana Pryor (Department of Psychology, University of Akron), in recruiting participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.