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Processing of facial expressions of emotion and alexithymia
Author(s) -
Pandey Rakesh,
Mandal Manas K.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1997.tb01269.x
Subject(s) - alexithymia , psychology , facial expression , toronto alexithymia scale , utterance , emotional expression , context (archaeology) , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , communication , linguistics , philosophy , paleontology , biology
Objective . The primary objective was to examine emotional responsiveness in alexithymia. Design . A quasi‐experimental design was followed with the alexithymia variable being manipulated by subject stratification based on Toronto Alexithymia Scale‐ 20‐H. Method . Alexithymics ( N =12) and non‐alexithymics ( N =12) were asked to match, label and verbally describe photographs displaying facial emotions along with TAT card II. Results . Alexithymics did not differ from non‐alexithymics in emotional matching and labelling tasks but had significant difficulty in verbally describing emotional expressions as evident by less duration of utterance, greater response latency and increased linguistic‐type speech disruptions. Speech disruptions did not produce a group difference for TAT card II. Conclusion . Such difficulty in alexithymics may be associated with their inability to use emotional words in the appropriate context.