The Sound of Feelings: Electrophysiological Responses to Emotional Speech in Alexithymia

Katharina Sophia Goerlich,André Aleman,Sander Martens

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036951

Katharina Sophia Goerlich, André Aleman + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036951

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Abstract

BackgroundAlexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in the cognitive processing of emotions (cognitive dimension) and in the experience of emotions (affective dimension). Previous research focused mainly on visual emotional processing in the cognitive alexithymia dimension. We investigated the impact of both alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses to emotional speech in 60 female subjects.MethodologyDuring unattended processing, subjects watched a movie while an emotional prosody oddball paradigm was presented in the background. During attended processing, subjects detected deviants in emotional prosody. The cognitive alexithymia dimension was associated with a left-hemisphere bias during early stages of unattended emotional speech processing, and with generally reduced amplitudes of the late P3 component during attended processing. In contrast, the affective dimension did not modulate unattended emotional prosody perception, but was associated with reduced P3 amplitudes during attended processing particularly to emotional prosody spoken in high intensity.ConclusionsOur results provide evidence for a dissociable impact of the two alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses during the attended and unattended processing of emotional prosody. The observed electrophysiological modulations are indicative of a reduced sensitivity to the emotional qualities of speech, which may be a contributing factor to problems in interpersonal communication associated with alexithymia.

Highlights

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in the cognitive processing and experience of emotions
The observed electrophysiological modulations are indicative of a reduced sensitivity to the emotional qualities of speech, which may be a contributing factor to problems in interpersonal communication associated with alexithymia
Individuals with average scores were included in order to ensure a broad and continuous spectrum of alexithymia scores on the cognitive dimension of the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ), which correlates to approx. 80% with the TAS-20 [8], and to increase the probability of a wide range of scores on the affective alexithymia dimension, which the BVAQ assesses in addition

Summary

Introduction

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in the cognitive processing and experience of emotions. The term alexithymia (‘no words for feelings’) was coined by Sifneos [7] to describe individuals who exhibited difficulty identifying, analyzing, and verbalizing their feelings In addition to these cognitive impairments in emotional processing (cognitive dimension), alexithymia is defined by difficulty emotionalizing (the degree to which someone is emotionally aroused by emotioninducing events) and fantasizing (the degree to which someone is inclined to imagine, day-dream, etc.). These latter two characteristics refer to the level of emotional experience (affective dimension). We investigated the impact of both alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses to emotional speech in 60 female subjects

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