Abstract
Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties in different domains of emotion processing, especially in relation to negative emotions. Nevertheless, its causal mechanisms remain elusive. Reduced anticipation of negative emotional events might be one such mechanism because it enables the individual to prepare to respond effectively to coming events. To test this, changes in skin conductance response (SCR) were recorded during classical fear conditioning in sixty participants with high (HA), medium (MA) and low (LA) levels of alexithymia. Two coloured squares were presented, one was reinforced with a mild electrical stimulation (CS+) while the other was never reinforced (CS−). Critically, despite all groups showing higher SCR to CS+ compared to CS−, SCR to CS+ was lower and extinguished earlier in HA compared to MA and LA. These differences appeared to be attributable neither to differences in the intensity of stimulation received, nor to SCR to the stimulation itself. Groups showed comparable SCR to CS− as well. Therefore, HA exhibited decreased anticipation of the occurrence of a negative emotional event. Disruption of this mechanism may then compromise effective emotion recognition, emotional response and response regulation, which characterise HA, and represent a unifying causal mechanism underlying the difficulties in emotion processing of this group.
Highlights
Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties in different domains of emotion processing, especially in relation to negative emotions
This study investigated whether high levels of alexithymia (HA) presented reduced anticipation of negative emotional events
Changes in skin conductance response (SCR) were recorded during classical fear conditioning to assess differences among levels of alexithymia (LA), MA and HA in anticipating the occurrence of a negative emotional event by learning patterns of association between conditioned stimulus (CS)+and unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
Summary
Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties in different domains of emotion processing, especially in relation to negative emotions. HA exhibited decreased anticipation of the occurrence of a negative emotional event Disruption of this mechanism may compromise effective emotion recognition, emotional response and response regulation, which characterise HA, and represent a unifying causal mechanism underlying the difficulties in emotion processing of this group. Decreased activation of the amygdala has been reported during the processing of emotional stimuli in HA12,13, which seems to be specific to negative stimuli, such as sad faces, fearful bodies or observation of pain in others[14,15,16,17] They show impairments in emotional response regulation[18] appearing less able to recur to reappraisal as a strategy to regulate emotions[19].
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