Individual differences in emotional processing and autobiographical memory: interoceptive awareness and alexithymia in the fading affect bias

Alexithymia mediates the relationship between interoceptive sensibility and anxiety

“…Mehling [ 61 ] highlights the importance of differentiating maladaptive anxiety-driven attention to interoceptive sensations and a more adaptive, mindful attention style. The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA [ 62 ]) was developed as a measure of adaptive interoceptive sensibility and has been found to be negatively associated with alexithymia [ 50 , 63 ]. Complimentary preliminary findings, of an association between interoceptive confusion and alexithymia, using an Interoceptive Confusion Questionnaire, have also been reported [ 64 ].…”

For whom, and for what, is experience sampling more accurate than retrospective report?

“…This limits the direct relevance of these findings for the utility of ESM in populations both high and low in alexithymia, because experience sampling's mnemonic benefits extend primarily to mental states and events that have occurred at a greater hiatus (e.g., one week). Research also suggests that the timing of alexithymia's effects on memory is important (Muir, Madill, & Brown, 2017). Thus, the specific impact of alexithymia for events that might be captured by experience sampling, instead of selfreported after the amount of time that might elapse in an outpatient clinical context, is not well understood.…”

Memory for emotional information and alexithymia A systematic review

“…On the scale, individuals with scores between 20 and 51 points are considered non-alexithymic; with scores in the interval between 52 and 60 points as “possibly alexithymic”; and with scores from 61 up to 100 points as alexithymic with clinical relevance. Of the studies analyzed in the current review, seven comprised groups with high enough alexithymia rates to be considered clinical samples, namely, the studies by Luminet et al, 23 Vermeulen and Luminet, 24 Vermeulen et al, 25 Vermeulen et al, 26 Dressaire et al, 27 Brandt et al, 28 and Muir et al 29 In the remaining studies, the high-alexithymia group presented mean scores below the range of possible alexithymia (less than 52 points on the TAS-20 - Table 1 ), with few participants in the clinical range for alexithymia.…”

“…Another study investigating alexithymia and autobiographical memory was reported by Muir et al, 29 and investigated whether different degrees of interoceptive awareness (sensitivity to internal bodily signals) had an impact on the Fading Affect Bias of autobiographical memory. The fading affect bias consists of greater forgetting for unpleasant than for pleasant autobiographical memories.…”

“…This bias is thought to play a role in emotional regulation by helping individuals to maintain a positive view of the world and of themselves (see Walker et al 42 , for a review). In the study reported by Muir et al, 29 ), alexithymia was measured by the TAS-20 and interoceptive awareness by the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA). Participants (13% of them within the clinical alexithymia range) were asked to recall pleasant and unpleasant events they had experienced in the last 12 months.…”