Alexithymia is a clinically relevant personality trait characterized by deficits in recognizing
and verbalizing one’s emotions. It has been shown that alexithymia is related to
an impaired perception of external emotional stimuli, but previous research focused
on emotion perception from faces and voices. Since sensory modalities represent
rather distinct input channels it is important to know whether alexithymia also affects
emotion perception in other modalities and expressive domains. The objective of our
review was to summarize and systematically assess the literature on the impact of
alexithymia on the perception of emotional (or hedonic) stimuli in music, odor, taste, and
touch. Eleven relevant studies were identified. On the basis of the reviewed research,
it can be preliminary concluded that alexithymia might be associated with deficits
in the perception of primarily negative but also positive emotions in music and a
reduced perception of aversive taste. The data available on olfaction and touch are
inconsistent or ambiguous and do not allow to draw conclusions. Future investigations
would benefit from a multimethod assessment of alexithymia and control of negative
affect. Multimodal research seems necessary to advance our understanding of emotion
perception deficits in alexithymia and clarify the contribution of modality-specific and
supramodal processing impairments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:84467 |
| Date | 31 March 2023 |
| Creators | Suslow, Thomas, Kersting, Anette |
| Publisher | Frontiers Research Foundation |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 1664-1078, 707599 |
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