Alexithymia and the Evaluation of Emotionally Valenced Scenes

Abstract

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings (DIF and DDF) and an externally oriented thinking (EOT) style. The primary aim of the present study was to investigate links between alexithymia and the evaluation of emotional scenes. We also investigated whether viewers' evaluations of emotional scenes were better predicted by specific alexithymic traits or by individual differences in sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). Participants (N = 106) completed measures of alexithymia and SPS along with a task requiring speeded judgments of the pleasantness of 120 moderately arousing scenes. We did not replicate laterality effects previously described with the scene perception task. Compared to those with weak alexithymic traits, individuals with moderate-to-strong alexithymic traits were less likely to classify positively valenced scenes as pleasant and were less likely to classify scenes with (vs. without) implied motion (IM) in a way that was consistent with normative scene valence ratings. In addition, regression analyses confirmed that reporting strong EOT and a tendency to be easily overwhelmed by busy sensory environments negatively predicted classification accuracy for positive scenes, and that both DDF and EOT negatively predicted classification accuracy for scenes depicting IM. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for stimulus characteristics and individual differences in specific traits associated with alexithymia and SPS when investigating the processing of emotional stimuli. Learning more about the links between these individual difference variables may have significant clinical implications, given that alexithymia is an important, transdiagnostic risk factor for a wide range of psychopathologies.

Alexithymia and Sensory Processing Sensitivity: Areas of Overlap and Links to Sensory Processing Styles

“…TAS-20 total scores showed a moderately strong, positive relationship with HSPS total scores; this reflected, in part, the fact that (unlike EOT scores) DIF and DDF scores were positively related to EOE and, to a lesser extent, LST scores. These results replicate earlier findings ( Liss et al, 2008 ; Rigby et al, 2020 ) and suggest that many individuals who have difficulties with emotional appraisal report being easily overwhelmed or made uncomfortable by sensory stimulation. This heightened sensitivity could interfere with emotional appraisal and regulation in a variety of ways.…”

“…The findings described earlier suggest that low IA may be just one facet of atypical sensory processing that can characterize people with alexithymia and that some individuals with alexithymia may have co-occurring SPS. Indeed, in a recent study involving 106 undergraduate students, we found that close to 50% of those who scored in the upper third of the distribution of TAS-20 scores could be classified as Orchids based on their HSPS scores ( Rigby et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Supplementing the TAS-20 with an interview-based measure or adding objective measures of physiological responsivity, sensory processing, or simulation (e.g., facial mimicry) would be useful in future studies, as would determining how individuals belonging to different subtypes perform on emotion perception tasks—particularly the perception of positive emotions, which have generally been understudied ( Shiota et al, 2017 ). In this regard, we have recently shown that aspects of both alexithymia (DDF and EOT) and SPS (EOE) predict individual differences in how young adults evaluate emotionally valenced scenes ( Rigby et al, 2020 ).…”

“…SPS is characterized (in part) by a tendency to become easily overwhelmed by environmental stimuli and multitasking demands and by increased sensitivity to subtle and aesthetic features of one's environment (Aron et al, 2012). The former feature of SPS is positively associated with DIF/DDF, and the latter is negatively related to EOT (Liss et al, 2008;Rigby et al, 2020). Unlike many people with alexithymia, individuals scoring high on SPS have a "rich" inner life, which might suggest an enhanced ability to keep perceptual representations of past, current, or imagined situations active in working memory.…”

The Effect of Environment on Psychological Outcomes of the Highly Sensitive Person: A Systematic Scoping Review

“…One possible link between SPS and poorer psychological outcomes is dysfunctional cognitive responses to environmental stimuli, such as rumination i.e., cognitive reactivity (Wyller et al, 2017). SPS has also been found to impact on cognitive tasks, for example in Rigby et al (2020), where EOE was a negative predictor of accuracy in classification of positive scenes in an evaluation of emotional scenes task.…”