Alexithymia and automatic processing of facial emotions: behavioral and neural findings.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings, an externally oriented style of thinking, and a reduced inclination to imagination. Previous research has shown deficits in the recognition of emotional facial expressions in alexithymia and reductions of brain responsivity to emotional stimuli. Using an affective priming paradigm, we investigated automatic perception of facial emotions as a function of alexithymia at the behavioral and neural level. In addition to self-report scales, we applied an interview to assess alexithymic tendencies.

Results

During 3 T fMRI scanning, 49 healthy individuals judged valence of neutral faces preceded by briefly shown happy, angry, fearful, and neutral facial expressions. Alexi

SUBMITTER: Rosenberg N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7257227 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature