Mapping facets of alexithymia to executive dysfunction in daily life

摘要: Alexithymia refers to a cluster of emotion processing weaknesses. Etiological theories suggest frontal lobe impairment, which implicates corresponding executive dysfunction. Although some studies have identified cognitive deficits in alexithymia, no study has systematically investigated functioning this population while simultaneously deconstructing alexithymia and related constructs into empirically-derived dimensions. In study, 104 adults completed self-report measures emotional intelligence, mood awareness as well an ecologically-sensitive measure discrete functions daily life. Principal components analysis revealed two latent factors: clarity (EC) monitoring (EM). Analyses that low-EC participants performed worse than high-EC across multiple function domains, including behavioral initiation/inhibition, set-shifting, self-monitoring, working memory, error recognition, ability plan organize. No relationship was found between EM patterns performance. These data highlight the need decompose facets dysfunction is lack specifically rather broadly.