Perceptive and affective impairments in emotive eye-region processing in alexithymia

Zhihao Wang, Katharina S. Goerlich, Pengfei Xu, Yue-Jia Luo*, Andre Aleman

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)
89 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Alexithymia is characterized by impairments in emotion processing, frequently linked to facial expressions of emotion. The eye-region conveys information necessary for emotion processing. It has been demonstrated that alexithymia is associated with reduced attention to the eyes, but little is known regarding the cognitive and electrophysiological mechanisms underlying emotive eye-region processing in alexithymia. Here, we recorded behavioral and electrophysiological responses of individuals with alexithymia (ALEX; n = 25) and individuals without alexithymia (NonALEX; n = 23) while they viewed intact and eyeless faces with angry and sad expressions during a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation task. Results showed different eye-region focuses and differentiating N1 responses between intact and eyeless faces to anger and sadness in NonALEX, but not in ALEX, suggesting deficient perceptual processing of the eye-region in alexithymia. Reduced eye-region focus and smaller differences in frontal alpha asymmetry in response to sadness between intact and eyeless faces were observed in ALEX than NonALEX, indicative of impaired affective processing of the eye-region in alexithymia. These findings highlight perceptual and affective abnormalities of emotive eye-region processing in alexithymia. Our results contribute to understanding the neuropsychopathology of alexithymia and alexithymia-related disorders.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)912–922
Number of pages11
JournalSocial Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Volume17
Issue number10
Early online date21-Feb-2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct-2022

Keywords

  • alexithymia
  • N1
  • frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA)
  • eye-region
  • two-stage model of facial expression processing
  • FACIAL EXPRESSION
  • EARLY FACE
  • RECOGNITION
  • ANXIETY
  • AUTISM
  • SENSITIVITY
  • VALIDATION
  • MECHANISMS
  • REACTIVITY
  • COMPONENT

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