Alexithymia and Incidental Learning of Emotional Words

Abstract

Alexithymia is thought to reflect a deficit in the cognitive capacity to process emotions. Prior research suggests that emotional valence has a memory enhancing effect in poor conceptual learning conditions. This study addressed the question of whether incidental learning of emotional words is a function of alexithymic tendencies. Incidental learning is unintentional learning that results from other activities. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and measures of depression and verbal intelligence were administered to 30 nonclinical subjects (15 women, 15 men) whose mean age was 35.5 yr. ( SD = 8.6) along with a sequential word-word evaluation task. Partial correlations indicated that the TAS-20 subscale, Difficulties identifying feelings was negatively correlated with recall of positive distractor words but not with recall of neutral distractors or recall of positive or negative target words. Emotional valence appears to have less organizational power in the memory of individuals with difficulties in recognizing their feelings.