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Disentangling interoceptive abilities in alexithymia
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Scarpazza, Cristina, Zangrossi, Andrea, Huang, Yu-Chun, Sartori, Giuseppe and Massaro, Sebastiano (2022) Disentangling interoceptive abilities in alexithymia. Psychological Research, 86 (3). pp. 844-857. doi:10.1007/s00426-021-01538-x ISSN 0340-0727.
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WRAP-Disentangling-interoceptive-abilities-in-alexithymia-Huang-22.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (990Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01538-x
Abstract
In recent years, research on interoceptive abilities (i.e., sensibility, accuracy, and awareness) and their associations with emotional experience has flourished. Yet interoceptive abilities in alexithymia—a personality trait characterized by a difficulty in the cognitive interpretation of emotional arousal, which impacts emotional experience—remain under-investigated, thereby limiting a full understanding of subjective emotional experience processing. Research has proposed two contrasting explanations thus far: in one model, the dimensions of interoceptive sensibility and accuracy in alexithymia would increase; in the other model, they would decrease. Surprisingly, the contribution of interoceptive awareness has been minimally researched. In this study (N = 182), the relationship between participants’ level of alexithymia and the three interoceptive dimensions was tested. Our results show that the higher the level of alexithymia is, the higher interoceptive accuracy and sensibility (R2 = 0.29 and R2 = 0.14); conversely, the higher the level of alexithymia is, the lower interoceptive awareness (R2 = 0.36). Moreover, an ROC analysis reveals that interoceptive awareness is the most accurate predictor of alexithymia, yielding over 92% accuracy. Collectively, these results support a coherent understanding of interoceptive abilities in alexithymia, whereby the dissociation of interoceptive accuracy and awareness may explain the underlying psycho-physiological mechanisms of alexithymia. A possible neurocognitive mechanism is discussed which suggests insurgence of psychosomatic disorders in alexithymia and related psychotherapeutic approaches.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology | ||||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Alexithymia, Cognitive therapy | ||||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Psychological Research | ||||||||||
Publisher: | Springer | ||||||||||
ISSN: | 0340-0727 | ||||||||||
Official Date: | April 2022 | ||||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 86 | ||||||||||
Number: | 3 | ||||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 844-857 | ||||||||||
DOI: | 10.1007/s00426-021-01538-x | ||||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 2 August 2022 | ||||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 8 August 2022 | ||||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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