The role of alexithymia in memory and executive functioning across the lifespan

ABSTRACT

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterised by difficulties identifying feelings (DIF), describing feelings (DDF), and externally oriented thinking (EOT). Alexithymia has been associated with poorer memory, at least for emotive materials, and recently, with executive and neural dysfunction. Aging is also accompanied by poorer memory and executive functioning (EF), neural dysfunction, and increasing alexithymia. Thus, the hypothesis of a general cognitive impairment in alexithymia, particularly in elders, needs investigation. Three large, independent, cross-sectional experiments (n = 296, 139 and 121, respectively) investigated memory and EF in healthy adults, ranging from young to old adulthood, with age, sex, and the three Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 subscales (DIF, DDF, EOT) as predictors in hierarchical regressions. Across studies, alexithymia contributed to poorer memory (via EOT) and EF (via DIF), in younger and older adults. Additionally, these effects occurred in non-emotive contexts with neutral stimuli. Moreover, although memory was worse with greater age and poor EF contributed to poor memory, those who had both high EOT and poor EF had particularly poor memory. Thus, alexithymia (particularly via high DIF or high EOT) is a risk factor for age-related cognitive decline. Further research should clarify the direction and nature of these complex relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Alexithymia
• aging
• episodic memory
• executive functioning

Acknowledgements

For assistance with various aspects of these experiments, the authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Drs. Kathleen Hazlett Elverman, Shaun English, Christina Figueroa, Stephanie Potts, and Katherine Reiter; and David Amy, Crystal Becker, Jessica Burkard, Megan Fabisch, Emily Gaber, Zachary Grese, Abigail Helbling, Joshua Krueger, Sarah Lentes, Riley Marinelli, Cara Macchia, Carolyn Madry, David Marra, Marie Mejaki, Emma Murry, Holly Robertson, Stephanie Ocwieja, Kara Pierce, Angela Preston, Stephenie, Quirke, Kristen Skells, Olivia Speeter, Megan Spoo, Aubrey Tschanz, Janel Wasisco, and Alex Zurek.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Multiple measures collected for these protocols (i.e. original purposes, hypothesis) masking are not shown. The corresponding author can provide a complete list. Validated test ordering was used to avoid contamination (e.g. no verbal/memory tests during memory retention). All subjects with valid data were included. All procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB).

2 Normal range was exceeded if: both depression and anxiety T-scores > 63 (n = 15 Experiment 1, n = 15, Experiment 2, n = 9 (7 young)); or BDI > 13 and/or BAI > 15 (mild) (Experiment 3, n = 5, all young). Removal of these subjects from models did not alter study results.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by a grant from the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program of the National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Science [8UL1TR000055], a Way-Klingler Sabbatical Fellowship award from Marquette University, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship [#1452781] and grants from the Scientific Research Network on Decision Neuroscience and Aging (Stanford University Center on Longevity), National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and the National Institutes of Health [UL1TR001436 and TL1TR001437].