Left hemispheric preference and alexithymia: A neuropsychological investigation

Bermond, Bob; Bleys, Joris; Stoffels, E.J.

doi:10.1080/02699930441000193

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…However, the question of right hemisphere predominance for emotional aspects of speech is still under debate and may constitute a relative rather than an absolute dominance [43], [79], [80]. In any case, our finding of a left-hemisphere bias during early acoustic processing of emotional prosody in cognitive alexithymia is in line with the hypothesis of a hyperactive left hemisphere during emotional processing in this personality trait [32], and suggests that decreased abilities in identifying and verbalizing one's feelings are linked to a hyper-reliance on the left hemisphere, normally specialized for cognitive analyses rather than emotional processing [81].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

The Sound of Feelings: Electrophysiological Responses to Emotional Speech in Alexithymia

2012

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BackgroundAlexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in the cognitive processing of emotions (cognitive dimension) and in the experience of emotions (affective dimension). Previous research focused mainly on visual emotional processing in the cognitive alexithymia dimension. We investigated the impact of both alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses to emotional speech in 60 female subjects.MethodologyDuring unattended processing, subjects watched a movie while an emotional prosody oddball paradigm was presented in the background. During attended processing, subjects detected deviants in emotional prosody. The cognitive alexithymia dimension was associated with a left-hemisphere bias during early stages of unattended emotional speech processing, and with generally reduced amplitudes of the late P3 component during attended processing. In contrast, the affective dimension did not modulate unattended emotional prosody perception, but was associated with reduced P3 amplitudes during attended processing particularly to emotional prosody spoken in high intensity.ConclusionsOur results provide evidence for a dissociable impact of the two alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses during the attended and unattended processing of emotional prosody. The observed electrophysiological modulations are indicative of a reduced sensitivity to the emotional qualities of speech, which may be a contributing factor to problems in interpersonal communication associated with alexithymia.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

The Sound of Feelings: Electrophysiological Responses to Emotional Speech in Alexithymia

2012

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“…After all, alexithymia is defined by severe reductions in the experience of various components of emotions, and the results of Dewaraja and Sasaki do not indicate that less or incorrect information is sent to the left hemisphere. Moreover, the implicit assumption in the experimental design of Dewaraja and Sasaki, namely, that the information is processed in the hemisphere where it arrives, is dubious (Bermond et al, 2004). Contralateral processing, according to the relay model of Springer and Deutsch (1993) has to be expected if the opposite hemisphere is better suited for the cognitive task involved (Banich & Karol, 1992;Gazzaniga, Ivry, & Mangun, 1998).…”

Section: Alexithymia and The Corpus Callosummentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These results suggest that alexithymia could involve: (a) a malfunctioning of the right hemisphere: or (b) a hyperactive left hemisphere (Bear, 1983;Berenbaum & Prince, 1994;Taylor, 1984aTaylor, , 1984bVoeller, 1986;Weintraub & Mesulam, 1983). Both positions have been supported (Aftanas, Varlamov, Reva, & Pavlov, 2003;Bermond, Bleys, & Stoffels, 2004;Kano et al, 2003;Spalletta et al, 2001). Conjugate lateral eye movements (CLEMs) are considered to be indicative of relative hemispheric activations.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Lumley and Sielky (2000), using a finger localisation task, demonstrated that individuals, who scored high on alexithymia as measured by the TAS, made more errors in localising fingers in the left hand (right hemisphere) compared to localisation of fingers of the right hand. Finally, Bermond et al (2004) studied alexithymic and nonalexithymic subjects, using a visual-matching task paradigm with lateralised stimuli. They demonstrated that alexithymic subjects with severe reductions in``identifying'' and``verbalising'' emotions process emotional wordsÐwhich are presented to the right hemisphereÐin their left hemisphere.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Cognitive neuropsychology of alexithymia: Implications for personality typology

Bermond¹,

Vorst²,

Moormann³

2006

Cognitive Neuropsychiatry

101

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The following conclusions and/or propositions are presented: The right hemisphere produces a global, nonverbal overview of emotional information; the left hemisphere seems dedicated to analysing emotions and higher explicit emotional cognitions. Both orbitoprefrontal cortices are important in affective aspects of alexithymia, while right temporal cortex is involved in cognitive aspects. Two subparts of anterior cingulate fulfil functions in the affective and cognitive dimensions of alexithymia. The amygdalae are involved in both cognitive and affective aspects. All structures mentioned can modulate one another. The role of interhemispheric information transfer via the corpus callosum and the anterior commissure is also discussed. The evidence that that cognitive processing of emotional information inhibits affective processing of such information is discussed in terms of its implications for a theory of alexithymia subtypes.

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“…This resulted in the exclusion of 34 data points from 3 younger adults and 10 older adults (range of data points excluded per participant: 1-6) in the lexical decision task and of 26 data points from 3 younger adults and 8 older adults (range of data points excluded per participant: 1-8) in the facial decision task. Subsequently, we excluded individual data points as done by Bermond, Bleys and Stoffels (2005). These authors removed reaction time data for each participant which deviated from each participant's personal mean by more than ±2SD.…”

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confidence: 99%