title: Impairment of conflict processing in alexithymic individuals.
abstract: Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties in identifying and describing feelings and in distinguishing between feelings and bodily sensations. Several researchers have examined the impairment of executive functioning in alexithymia; however, only a few studies have been specifically concerned with conflict processing in alexithymia. Utilizing the attention network test (ANT), we investigated whether alexithymia is related to or independent of executive function, especially with respect to conflict processing. Participants included 33 subjects with high alexithymia scores on the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and 30 matched subjects with low alexithymia scores. On the ANT, we found a significant difference between the two groups in conflict processing, and no significant difference in alerting and orienting dimensions. These findings suggested that subjects with high alexithymia scores have selective impairment in conflict processing.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Department of Medical Psychology, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, PR China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Chunyan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Zhaolun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Yanghua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Panpan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D002681:China; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004522:Educational Status; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D055815:Young Adult