Dimensions of Alexithymia and Identification of Emotions in Masked and Unmasked Faces

Autor: Thomas Suslow, Anette Kersting, Charlott Maria Bodenschatz
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Behavioral Sciences, Vol 14, Iss 8, p 692 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2076-328X
DOI: 10.3390/bs14080692
Popis: Alexithymia, a multifaceted personality construct, is known to be related to difficulties in the decoding of emotional facial expressions, especially in case of suboptimal stimuli. The present study investigated whether and which facets of alexithymia are related to impairments in the recognition of emotions in faces with face masks. Accuracy and speed of emotion recognition were examined in a block of faces with and a block of faces without face masks in a sample of 102 healthy individuals. The order of blocks varied between participants. Emotions were recognized better and faster in unmasked than in masked faces. Recognition performance was worst and slowest for participants starting the task with masked faces. In the whole sample, there were no correlations of alexithymia facets with accuracy and speed of emotion recognition for masked and unmasked faces. In participants starting the task with masked faces, the facet externally oriented thinking was positively correlated with reaction latencies of correct responses for masked faces. Our findings indicate that an externally oriented thinking style could be linked to a less efficient identification of emotions from faces wearing masks when task difficulty is high and support the utility of a facet approach in alexithymia research.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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