Dissociation of rated emotional valence and Stroop interference in observer-rated alexithymia.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to investigate a theoretically predicted deficit in the capacity to process emotions in alexithymia. The performance of patients high and that of patients low in alexithymia was tested in a computerized emotional Stroop task.


METHODS
Reaction times of high and low self- and observer-rated alexithymia groups of 45 psychosomatic inpatients were compared. The task was to name the color of emotionally neutral, positive, negative, and bodily-symptom words as quickly as possible.


RESULTS
As expected, patients rated high versus those rated low in alexithymia by observers (but not by self-rating) showed a significantly lesser emotional bias for emotionally negative words and bodily-symptom words but did not differ in their explicit rating of the emotional valence of the words.


CONCLUSIONS
This dissociation between explicit and implicit reactions to the emotional valence of word stimuli suggests that patients high in alexithymia spontaneously allocate less processing resources to negative information.
Mueller
Jochen
J
Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, 97070 Würzburg, Germany. j.mueller@psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de
Alpers
Georg W
GW
Reim
Norman
N
D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology*; D004213:Dissociative Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005858:Germany; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes; D015588:Observer Variation; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012044:Regression Analysis