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Alexithymia and emotional reactions to odors.

ABSTRACT: Alexithymia is a psychological construct characterized by deficits in processing emotional stimuli. However, little is known about the processing of odours in alexithymia, even though there is extensive proof that emotion and olfaction are closely linked. The present study is aimed at investigating how alexithymic individuals process emotions conveyed by odors. Emotional responses to unpleasant, neutral odors and clean air were collected through self-report ratings and psychophysiological measures in a sample of 62 healthy participants with high (HA), medium (MA) and low (LA) levels of alexithymia. Moreover, participants performed tests on odors identification and threshold and completed questionnaires assessing olfactory imagery and awareness. Two main results have been found: first, HA and MA groups showed altered physiological responses to odors, compared to LA, while no differences among the groups were observed in odor ratings; and second, affective and cognitive alexithymia components were differently associated with the performance on olfactory tests, skin conductance response to odors, reaction times in the rating task, and scores on olfactory questionnaires. We conclude that alexithymia is characterized by altered physiological reactions to olfactory stimuli; moreover, we stress the importance of evaluating the different alexithymia components since they affect emotional stimuli processing in different ways.

SUBMITTER: Cecchetto C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5658372 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Alexithymia and emotional reactions to odors.

Cecchetto Cinzia C Rumiati Raffaella Ida RI Aiello Marilena M

Scientific reports 20171026 1

Alexithymia is a psychological construct characterized by deficits in processing emotional stimuli. However, little is known about the processing of odours in alexithymia, even though there is extensive proof that emotion and olfaction are closely linked. The present study is aimed at investigating how alexithymic individuals process emotions conveyed by odors. Emotional responses to unpleasant, neutral odors and clean air were collected through self-report ratings and psychophysiological measur ...[more]

PMID: 29074970

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Project description:Background: The concept of alexithymia is characterized by difficulties identifying and describing one's emotions. Alexithymic individuals are impaired in the recognition of others' emotional facial expressions. Alexithymia is quite common in patients suffering from major depressive disorder. The face-in-the-crowd task is a visual search paradigm that assesses processing of multiple facial emotions. In the present eye-tracking study, the relationship between alexithymia and visual processing of facial emotions was examined in clinical depression. Materials and Methods: Gaze behavior and manual response times of 20 alexithymic and 19 non-alexithymic depressed patients were compared in a face-in-the-crowd task. Alexithymia was empirically measured via the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia-Scale. Angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions of different individuals were shown as target and distractor stimuli. Our analyses of gaze behavior focused on latency to the target face, number of distractor faces fixated before fixating the target, number of target fixations, and number of distractor faces fixated after fixating the target. Results: Alexithymic patients exhibited in general slower decision latencies compared to non-alexithymic patients in the face-in-the-crowd task. Patient groups did not differ in latency to target, number of target fixations, and number of distractors fixated prior to target fixation. However, after having looked at the target, alexithymic patients fixated more distractors than non-alexithymic patients, regardless of expression condition. Discussion: According to our results, alexithymia goes along with impairments in visual processing of multiple facial emotions in clinical depression. Alexithymia appears to be associated with delayed manual reaction times and prolonged scanning after the first target fixation in depression, but it might have no impact on the early search phase. The observed deficits could indicate difficulties in target identification and/or decision-making when processing multiple emotional facial expressions. Impairments of alexithymic depressed patients in processing emotions in crowds of faces seem not limited to a specific affective valence. In group situations, alexithymic depressed patients might be slowed in processing interindividual differences in emotional expressions compared with non-alexithymic depressed patients. This could represent a disadvantage in understanding non-verbal communication in groups.

Dataset Information

Alexithymia and emotional reactions to odors.

Publications

Alexithymia and emotional reactions to odors.

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