The present work is the first to examine the behavioral and the neurobiological
correlates of trait emotional awareness and alexithymia which are related
personality constructs. Both traits are essential for understanding the abilities and
deficits of psychosomatic patients to regulate emotions. However, to date little is
known about their behavioral and neurobiological correlates. Therefore, the
present dissertation addresses the relation between both constructs. The
introduction section give an extensive overview of the available behavioral and
neurobiological research. Based on the revealed literature, open research questions
are identified and addressed in one psychometric and one imaging study. In study
1 the psychometric properties and relations between two different methods of
measuring alexithymia and one measure of emotional awareness were evaluated.
The 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Toronto Structured
Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA), and the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale
(LEAS), which is a performance-based measure of emotional awareness, were
administered to 84 university students. Study 2 addressed automatic brain
reactivity to emotional stimuli as a function of trait emotional awareness. During
scanning, happy, angry, fearful, and neutral facial expressions were subliminally
presented to 46 healthy subjects, who had to rate the fit between artificial and
emotional words. The results of the studies are summarized and integrated in the
existing literature. Finally, open research questions are discussed, implications for
future research are outlined.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa.de:bsz:15-qucosa-179197 |
| Date | 17 September 2015 |
| Creators | Lichev, Vladimir |
| Contributors | Universität Leipzig, Medizinische Fakultät, Prof. Dr. med. Ulrich Hegerl, Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr. phil. Uwe Wolfradt |
| Publisher | Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | doc-type:doctoralThesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
Page generated in 0.0017 seconds