Have a personal or library account? Click to login
The Role of Alexithymia in Social Learning and Feedback-Driven Social Inferences Cover

The Role of Alexithymia in Social Learning and Feedback-Driven Social Inferences

Open Access
|Mar 2026

References

  1. Aaron, R. V., Snodgress, M. A., Blain, S. D., & Park, S. (2018). Affect labeling and other aspects of emotional experiences in relation to alexithymia following standardized emotion inductions. Psychiatry Research, 262, 115123. 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.02.014
  2. Adolphs, R. (2002). Neural systems for recognizing emotion. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 12(2), 169177. 10.1016/S0959-4388(02)00301-X
  3. Akinci, E., Wieser, M.-O., Vanscheidt, S., Diop, S., Flasbeck, V., Akinci, B., Stiller, C., Juckel, G., & Mavrogiorgou, P. (2022). Impairments of Social Interaction in Depressive Disorder. Psychiatry Investigation, 19(3), 178189. 10.30773/pi.2021.0289
  4. Alkan Härtwig, E., Aust, S., Heekeren, H. R., & Heuser, I. (2020). No Words for Feelings? Not Only for My Own: Diminished Emotional Empathic Ability in Alexithymia. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 14, 112. 10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00112
  5. Allen, L. B., Qian Lu, Tsao, J. C. I., Hayes, L. P., & Zeltzer, L. K. (2011). Depression partially mediates the relationship between alexithymia and somatization in a sample of healthy children. Journal of Health Psychology, 16(8), 11771186. 10.1177/1359105311402407
  6. Bagby, R. M., Parker, J. D. A., & Taylor, G. J. (1994). The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia scale—I. Item selection and cross-validation of the factor structure. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 38(1), 2332. 10.1016/0022-3999(94)90005-1
  7. Banzhaf, C., Hoffmann, F., Kanske, P., Fan, Y., Walter, H., Spengler, S., Schreiter, S., Singer, T., & Bermpohl, F. (2018). Interacting and dissociable effects of alexithymia and depression on empathy. Psychiatry Research, 270, 631638. 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.10.045
  8. Beadle, J. N., & McCormick, L. M. (2014). Alexithymia, emotional empathy, and self-regulation in anorexia nervosa. Annals of Clinical Psychiatry, 25(2), 107120. 10.1177/104012371302500205
  9. Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. (1996). Beck depression inventory– II. Psychological Assessment. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/t00742-000
  10. Berenbaum, H., & Irvin, S. (1996). Alexithymia, anger, and interpersonal behavior. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 65(4), 203208. 10.1159/000289076
  11. Besharat, M. A. (2007). Reliability and factorial validity of a farsi version of the 20-item Toronto alexithymia scale with a sample of Iranian students. Psychological Reports, 101(1), 209220. 10.2466/PR0.101.1.209-220
  12. Bird, G., & Cook, R. (2013). Mixed emotions: The contribution of alexithymia to the emotional symptoms of autism. Translational Psychiatry, 3(7), e285e285. 10.1038/tp.2013.61
  13. Borhani, K., Borgomaneri, S., Làdavas, E., & Bertini, C. (2016). The effect of alexithymia on early visual processing of emotional body postures. Biological Psychology, 115, 18. 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.12.010
  14. Borhani, K., Làdavas, E., Fotopoulou, A., & Haggard, P. (2017). “Lacking warmth”: Alexithymia trait is related to warm-specific thermal somatosensory processing. Biological Psychology, 128, 132140. 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.07.012
  15. Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1994). Measuring emotion: The self-assessment manikin and the semantic differential. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 25(1), 4959. 10.1016/0005-7916(94)90063-9
  16. Brady, W. J., McLoughlin, K., Doan, T. N., & Crockett, M. J. (2021). How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks. Science Advances, 7(33), eabe5641. 10.1126/sciadv.abe5641
  17. Dalili, M. N., Penton-Voak, I. S., Harmer, C. J., & Munafò, M. R. (2015). Meta-analysis of emotion recognition deficits in major depressive disorder. Psychological Medicine, 45(6), 11351144. 10.1017/S0033291714002591
  18. Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113126. 10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113
  19. Daw, N. D., & Doya, K. (2006). The computational neurobiology of learning and reward. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 16(2), 199204. 10.1016/j.conb.2006.03.006
  20. Daw, N. D., Kakade, S., & Dayan, P. (2002). Opponent interactions between serotonin and dopamine. Neural Networks, 15(4–6), 603616. 10.1016/S0893-6080(02)00052-7
  21. De Galan, M., Sellaro, R., Colzato, L. S., & Hommel, B. (2014). Conflict adaptation is predicted by the cognitive, but not the affective alexithymia dimension. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00768
  22. Demers, L. A., & Koven, N. S. (2015). The Relation of Alexithymic Traits to Affective Theory of Mind. The American Journal of Psychology, 128(1), 3142. 10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.1.0031
  23. Donges, U.-S., & Suslow, T. (2017). Alexithymia and automatic processing of emotional stimuli: A systematic review. Reviews in the Neurosciences, 28(3), 247264. 10.1515/revneuro-2016-0049
  24. Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175191. 10.3758/BF03193146
  25. FeldmanHall, O., Dalgleish, T., & Mobbs, D. (2013). Alexithymia decreases altruism in real social decisions. Cortex, 49(3), 899904. 10.1016/j.cortex.2012.10.015
  26. Ferguson, E., Bibby, P. A., Rosamond, S., O’Grady, C., Parcell, A., Amos, C., McCutcheon, C., & O’Carroll, R. (2009). Alexithymia, Cumulative Feedback, and Differential Response Patterns on the Iowa Gambling Task. Journal of Personality, 77(3), 883902. 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00568.x
  27. Forgeot d’Arc, B., Devaine, M., & Daunizeau, J. (2020). Social behavioural adaptation in Autism. PLoS Computational Biology, 16(3), e1007700. 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007700
  28. Frank, M. J., Moustafa, A. A., Haughey, H. M., Curran, T., & Hutchison, K. E. (2007). Genetic triple dissociation reveals multiple roles for dopamine in reinforcement learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(41), 1631116316. 10.1073/pnas.0706111104
  29. Franz, M., Schaefer, R., Schneider, C., Sitte, W., & Bachor, J. (2004). Visual Event-Related Potentials in Subjects With Alexithymia: Modified Processing of Emotional Aversive Information? American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(4), 728735. 10.1176/appi.ajp.161.4.728
  30. Frey, A.-L., Frank, M. J., & McCabe, C. (2021). Social reinforcement learning as a predictor of real-life experiences in individuals with high and low depressive symptomatology. Psychological Medicine, 51(3), 408415. 10.1017/S0033291719003222
  31. Frey, A.-L., & McCabe, C. (2020). Impaired social learning predicts reduced real-life motivation in individuals with depression: A computational fMRI study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 263, 698706. 10.1016/j.jad.2019.11.049
  32. Friston, K. (2005). A theory of cortical responses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 360(1456), 815836. 10.1098/rstb.2005.1622
  33. Friston, K. (2009). The free-energy principle: A rough guide to the brain? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(7), 293301. 10.1016/j.tics.2009.04.005
  34. Fuchs, M., Kersting, A., Suslow, T., & Bodenschatz, C. M. (2024). Recognizing and Looking at Masked Emotional Faces in Alexithymia. Behavioral Sciences, 14(4), 343. 10.3390/bs14040343
  35. Gaggero, G., Dellantonio, S., Pastore, L., Sng, K. H. L., & Esposito, G. (2022). Shared and unique interoceptive deficits in high alexithymia and neuroticism. PLoS ONE, 17(8), e0273922. 10.1371/journal.pone.0273922
  36. Gershman, S. J. (2015). Do learning rates adapt to the distribution of rewards? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22(5), 13201327. 10.3758/s13423-014-0790-3
  37. Ghassemzadeh, H., Mojtabai, R., Karamghadiri, N., & Ebrahimkhani, N. (2005). Psychometric properties of a Persian-language version of the Beck Depression Inventory – Second edition: BDI-II-PERSIAN. Depression and Anxiety, 21(4), 185192. 10.1002/da.20070
  38. Gilbert, J. R., Wusinich, C., & Zarate, C. A. (2022). A Predictive Coding Framework for Understanding Major Depression. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 16, 787495. 10.3389/fnhum.2022.787495
  39. Goerlich, K. S. (2018). The Multifaceted Nature of Alexithymia – A Neuroscientific Perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1614. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01614
  40. Goerlich, K. S., Aleman, A., & Martens, S. (2012). The Sound of Feelings: Electrophysiological Responses to Emotional Speech in Alexithymia. PLoS ONE, 7(5), e36951. 10.1371/journal.pone.0036951
  41. Goerlich-Dobre, K. S., Witteman, J., Schiller, N. O., Van Heuven, V. J. P., Aleman, A., & Martens, S. (2014). Blunted feelings: Alexithymia is associated with a diminished neural response to speech prosody. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(8), 11081117. 10.1093/scan/nst075
  42. Golbabaei, S., Barati, M., Haromi, M. E., Ghazazani, N., & Borhani, K. (2023). Development and construct validation of a short form of the interpersonal reactivity index in Iranian community. Current Psychology, 42(16), 1403814050. 10.1007/s12144-022-02716-9
  43. Golbabaei, S., & Borhani, K. (2024). Nearsighted empathy: Exploring the effect of empathy on distance perception, with eye movements as modulators. Scientific reports, 14(1), 25146. 10.1038/s41598-024-76731-0
  44. Golbabaei, S., Sammaknejad, N., & Borhani, K. (2023). Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Individuals with High and Low Alexithymia: The Mediating Role of Eye-Gaze Pattern to Facial Expressions. Quarterly Journal of Applied Psychology, 17(3). 10.48308/apsy.2023.230817.1460
  45. Grynberg, D., Berthoz, S., & Bird, G. (2018). Social and Interpersonal Implications of Alexithymia. Alexithymia: Advances in Research, Theory, and Clinical Practice, 174189. 10.1017/9781108241595.013
  46. Grynberg, D., Chang, B., Corneille, O., Maurage, P., Vermeulen, N., Berthoz, S., & Luminet, O. (2012). Alexithymia and the Processing of Emotional Facial Expressions (EFEs): Systematic Review, Unanswered Questions and Further Perspectives. PLoS ONE, 7(8), e42429. 10.1371/journal.pone.0042429
  47. Grynberg, D., Luminet, O., Corneille, O., Grèzes, J., & Berthoz, S. (2010). Alexithymia in the interpersonal domain: A general deficit of empathy? Personality and Individual Differences, 49(8), 845850. 10.1016/j.paid.2010.07.013
  48. Happé, F., & Frith, U. (2006). The Weak Coherence Account: Detail-focused Cognitive Style in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(1), 525. 10.1007/s10803-005-0039-0
  49. Hein, G., Engelmann, J. B., Vollberg, M. C., & Tobler, P. N. (2016). How learning shapes the empathic brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(1), 8085. 10.1073/pnas.1514539112
  50. Herbert, B. M., Herbert, C., & Pollatos, O. (2011). On the Relationship Between Interoceptive Awareness and Alexithymia: Is Interoceptive Awareness Related to Emotional Awareness?: Interoceptive Awareness and Alexithymia. Journal of Personality, 79(5), 11491175. 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2011.00717.x
  51. Hill, E., Berthoz, S., & Frith, U. (2004). Brief Report: Cognitive Processing of Own Emotions in Individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and in Their Relatives. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(2), 229235. 10.1023/B:JADD.0000022613.41399.14
  52. Hintikka, J., Honkalampi, K., Lehtonen, J., & Viinamäki, H. (2001). Are alexithymia and depression distinct or overlapping constructs?: A study in a general population. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 42(3), 234239. 10.1053/comp.2001.23147
  53. Hobson, H., Brewer, R., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2019). The Role of Language in Alexithymia: Moving Towards a Multiroute Model of Alexithymia. Emotion Review, 11(3), 247261. 10.1177/1754073919838528
  54. Honkalampi, K., Hintikka, J., Tanskanen, A., Lehtonen, J., & Viinamäki, H. (2000). Depression is strongly associated with alexithymia in the general population. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 48(1), 99104. 10.1016/S0022-3999(99)00083-5
  55. Ihme, K., Sacher, J., Lichev, V., Rosenberg, N., Kugel, H., Rufer, M., Grabe, H.-J., Pampel, A., Lepsien, J., Kersting, A., Villringer, A., & Suslow, T. (2014). Alexithymia and the labeling of facial emotions: Response slowing and increased motor and somatosensory processing. BMC Neuroscience, 15(1), 40. 10.1186/1471-2202-15-40
  56. Jiang, Y. (2022). Model Comparison and Parameter Recovery of Two Diffusion Models: Fast-dm and HDDM. PsyArXiv. 10.31234/osf.io/2jktp
  57. Jin, Y., Gao, Q., Wang, Y., Dietz, M., Xiao, L., Cai, Y., Bliksted, V., & Zhou, Y. (2023). Impaired social learning in patients with major depressive disorder revealed by a reinforcement learning model. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 23(4), 100389. 10.1016/j.ijchp.2023.100389
  58. Joiner, J., Piva, M., Turrin, C., & Chang, S. W. C. (2017). Social learning through prediction error in the brain. npj Science of Learning, 2(1), 18. 10.1038/s41539-017-0009-2
  59. Jongen, S., Axmacher, N., Kremers, N. A. W., Hoffmann, H., Limbrecht-Ecklundt, K., Traue, H. C., & Kessler, H. (2014). An investigation of facial emotion recognition impairments in alexithymia and its neural correlates. Behavioural Brain Research, 271, 129139. 10.1016/j.bbr.2014.05.069
  60. Kajanoja, J., Karukivi, M., Scheinin, N. M., Tuulari, J. J., Ahrnberg, H., Karlsson, L., & Karlsson, H. (2019). Alexithymia, body mass index and gestational diabetes in pregnant women—FinnBrain birth cohort study. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 124, 109742. 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2019.109742
  61. Kano, M., Ito, M., & Fukudo, S. (2011). Neural Substrates of Decision Making as Measured With the Iowa Gambling Task in Men With Alexithymia. Psychosomatic Medicine, 73(7), 588597. 10.1097/PSY.0b013e318223c7f8
  62. Kim, H., & Han, S. (2018). Does personal distress enhance empathic interaction or block it? Personality and Individual Differences, 124, 7783. 10.1016/j.paid.2017.12.005
  63. Kozakevich Arbel, E., Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., & Hertz, U. (2024). Adaptive empathic response selection is sensitive to multiple dimensions of social interaction. Communications Psychology, 2(1), 112. 10.1038/s44271-024-00164-8
  64. Lane, R. D., Lee, S., Reidel, R., Weldon, V., Kaszniak, A., & Schwartz, G. E. (1996). Impaired Verbal and Nonverbal Emotion Recognition in Alexithymia. Psychosomatic Medicine, 58(3), 203210. 10.1097/00006842-199605000-00002
  65. Lee, M. D., & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2014). Bayesian Cognitive Modeling: A Practical Course. Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139087759
  66. Luminet, O., Nielson, K. A., & Ridout, N. (2021). Having no words for feelings: alexithymia as a fundamental personality dimension at the interface of cognition and emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 35, 435448. 10.1080/02699931.2021.1916442
  67. Luminet, O., Rimé, B., Bagby, R. M., & Taylor, G. (2004). A multimodal investigation of emotional responding in alexithymia. Cognition & Emotion, 18(6), 741766. 10.1080/02699930341000275
  68. Mas, M., & Luminet, O. (2025). Alexithymia Moderates Salience Effects in Emotional Facial Expression Perception and Recognition. International Journal of Psychology, 60(2), e70037. 10.1002/ijop.70037
  69. Montebarocci, O., Surcinelli, P., Rossi, N., & Baldaro, B. (2011). Alexithymia, Verbal Ability and Emotion Recognition. Psychiatric Quarterly, 82(3), 245252. 10.1007/s11126-010-9166-7
  70. Moriguchi, Y., Decety, J., Ohnishi, T., Maeda, M., Mori, T., Nemoto, K., & Komaki, G. (2007). Empathy and judging other’s pain: an fMRI study of alexithymia. Cerebral cortex, 17(9), 22232234. 10.1093/cercor/bhl130
  71. Mottron, L., Dawson, M., Soulières, I., Hubert, B., & Burack, J. (2006). Enhanced Perceptual Functioning in Autism: An Update, and Eight Principles of Autistic Perception. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(1), 2743. 10.1007/s10803-005-0040-7
  72. Nam, G., Lee, H., Lee, J.-H., & Hur, J.-W. (2020). Disguised Emotion in Alexithymia: Subjective Difficulties in Emotion Processing and Increased Empathic Distress. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 698. 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00698
  73. Neath, A. A., & Cavanaugh, J. E. (2012). The Bayesian information criterion: Background, derivation, and applications. WIREs Computational Statistics, 4(2), 199203. 10.1002/wics.199
  74. Nemiah, J. C., Freyberger, H., & Sinfeos, P. E. (1976). Alexithymia: A view of the psychosomatic process. Modern trends in psychosomatic medicine, 3, 430439.
  75. Papciak, A. S., Feuerstein, M., & Spiegel, J. A. (1985). Stress Reactivity in Alexithymia: Decoupling of Physiological and Cognitive Responses. Journal of Human Stress, 11(3), 135142. 10.1080/0097840X.1985.9936750
  76. Parker, J. D. A., Taylor, G. J., & Bagby, M. (1993). Alexithymia and the Recognition of Facial Expressions of Emotion. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 59(3–4), 197202. 10.1159/000288664
  77. Parker, P. D., Prkachin, K. M., & Prkachin, G. C. (2005). Processing of Facial Expressions of Negative Emotion in Alexithymia: The Influence of Temporal Constraint. Journal of Personality, 73(4), 10871107. 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00339.x
  78. Pisani, S., Murphy, J., Conway, J., Millgate, E., Catmur, C., & Bird, G. (2021). The relationship between alexithymia and theory of mind: A systematic review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 131, 497524. 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.09.036
  79. Polzin, T. S. (2000). Verbal and non-verbal cues in the communication of emotions. 2000 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. Proceedings, 4, 24292432. 10.1109/ICASSP.2000.859332
  80. Preece, D., Becerra, R., Allan, A., Robinson, K., & Dandy, J. (2017). Establishing the theoretical components of alexithymia via factor analysis: Introduction and validation of the attention-appraisal model of alexithymia. Personality and Individual Differences, 119, 341352. 10.1016/j.paid.2017.08.003
  81. Reker, M., Ohrmann, P., Rauch, A. V., Kugel, H., Bauer, J., Dannlowski, U., Arolt, V., Heindel, W., & Suslow, T. (2010). Individual differences in alexithymia and brain response to masked emotion faces. Cortex, 46(5), 658667. 10.1016/j.cortex.2009.05.008
  82. Ridderinkhof, K. R., Ullsperger, M., Crone, E. A., & Nieuwenhuis, S. (2004). The Role of the Medial Frontal Cortex in Cognitive Control. Science, 306(5695), 443447. 10.1126/science.1100301
  83. Rigby, S. N., Jakobson, L. S., Pearson, P. M., & Stoesz, B. M. (2020). Alexithymia and the Evaluation of Emotionally Valenced Scenes. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1820. 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01820
  84. Safra, L., Chevallier, C., & Palminteri, S. (2019). Depressive symptoms are associated with blunted reward learning in social contexts. PLoS Computational Biology, 15(7), e1007224. 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007224
  85. Scarpazza, C., Di Pellegrino, G., & Làdavas, E. (2014). Emotional modulation of touch in alexithymia. Emotion, 14(3), 602610. 10.1037/a0035888
  86. Scarpazza, C., Làdavas, E., & Cattaneo, L. (2018). Invisible side of emotions: Somato-motor responses to affective facial displays in alexithymia. Experimental Brain Research, 236(1), 195206. 10.1007/s00221-017-5118-x
  87. Schilbach, L., Timmermans, B., Reddy, V., Costall, A., Bente, G., Schlicht, T., & Vogeley, K. (2013). Toward a second-person neuroscience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(4), 393414. 10.1017/S0140525X12000660
  88. Seibt, B., Mühlberger, A., Likowski, K. U., & Weyers, P. (2015). Facial mimicry in its social setting. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01122
  89. Sevgi, M., Diaconescu, A. O., Henco, L., Tittgemeyer, M., & Schilbach, L. (2020). Social Bayes: Using Bayesian Modeling to Study Autistic Trait–Related Differences in Social Cognition. Biological Psychiatry, 87(2), 185193. 10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.09.032
  90. Shaw, A. D., Sumner, R. L., & Berndt, L. C. S. (2025). Predictive Coding and Neurocomputational Psychiatry: A Mechanistic Framework for Understanding Mental Disorders. 10.31234/osf.io/wd23k_v2
  91. Shen, L., Hu, Y., Lv, Q., Yi, Z., Gong, J., & Yan, C. (2024). Using hierarchical drift diffusion models to elucidate computational mechanisms of reduced reward sensitivity in adolescent major depressive disorder. BMC Psychiatry, 24(1), 933. 10.1186/s12888-024-06353-3
  92. Sifneos, P. E. (1973). The prevalence of ‘alexithymic’ characteristics in psychosomatic patients. Psychotherapy and psychosomatics, 22(2–6), 255262. 10.1159/000286529
  93. Smith, R., Badcock, P., & Friston, K. J. (2021). Recent advances in the application of predictive coding and active inference models within clinical neuroscience. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 75(1), 313. 10.1111/pcn.13138
  94. Starita, F., Borhani, K., Bertini, C., & Scarpazza, C. (2018). Alexithymia Is Related to the Need for More Emotional Intensity to Identify Static Fearful Facial Expressions. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 929. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00929
  95. Starita, F., & Di Pellegrino, G. (2018). Alexithymia and the Reduced Ability to Represent the Value of Aversively Motivated Actions. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2587. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02587
  96. Starita, F., Làdavas, E., & Di Pellegrino, G. (2016). Reduced anticipation of negative emotional events in alexithymia. Scientific reports, 6(1), 27664. 10.1038/srep27664
  97. Starita, F., Pietrelli, M., Bertini, C., & Di Pellegrino, G. (2019). Aberrant reward prediction error during Pavlovian appetitive learning in alexithymia. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 14(10), 11191129. 10.1093/scan/nsz089
  98. Stone, L. A., & Nielson, K. A. (2001). Intact Physiological Response to Arousal with Impaired Emotional Recognition in Alexithymia. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 70(2), 92102. 10.1159/000056232
  99. Suslow, T., Kersting, A., & Arolt, V. (2003). Alexithymia and incidental learning of emotional words. Psychological Reports, 93(3), 10031012. 10.2466/pr0.2003.93.3f.1003
  100. Suslow, T., Kersting, A., & Bodenschatz, C. M. (2024). Dimensions of Alexithymia and Identification of Emotions in Masked and Unmasked Faces. Behavioral Sciences, 14(8), 692. 10.3390/bs14080692
  101. Sutton, R. S., & Barto, A. (1994). Reinforcement Learning. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11(1), 126134. 10.1162/089892999563184
  102. Swart, M., Kortekaas, R., & Aleman, A. (2009). Dealing with Feelings: Characterization of Trait Alexithymia on Emotion Regulation Strategies and Cognitive-Emotional Processing. PLoS ONE, 4(6), e5751. 10.1371/journal.pone.0005751
  103. Takano, Y., Takahashi, N., Tanaka, D., & Hironaka, N. (2010). Big Losses Lead to Irrational Decision-Making in Gambling Situations: Relationship between Deliberation and Impulsivity. PLoS ONE, 5(2), e9368. 10.1371/journal.pone.0009368
  104. Taylor, G. J., Bagby, R. M., Parker, J. D. A., & Grotstein, J. (1999). Disorders of Affect Regulation: Alexithymia in Medical and Psychiatric Illness. Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/cbo9780511526831
  105. Taylor, G. J., Michael Bagby, R., & Parker, J. D. A. (1991). The Alexithymia Construct: A Potential Paradigm for Psychosomatic Medicine. Psychosomatics, 32(2), 153164. 10.1016/S0033-3182(91)72086-0
  106. Telli, B., & Bilge, A. R. (2024). Literally or prosodically? Recognising emotional discourse in alexithymia. Cognition and Emotion, 115. 10.1080/02699931.2024.2380762
  107. Timler, G. R. (2003). Reading Emotion Cues: Social Communication Difficulties in Pediatric Populations. Seminars in Speech and Language, 24(2), 121130. 10.1055/s-2003-38903
  108. Tuch, R. H. (2011). Thinking Outside The Box: A Metacognitive/Theory Of Mind Perspective On Concrete Thinking. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 59(4), 765789. 10.1177/0003065111417625
  109. Van De Cruys, S., Evers, K., Van Der Hallen, R., Van Eylen, L., Boets, B., de-Wit, L., & Wagemans, J. (2014). Precise minds in uncertain worlds: Predictive coding in autism. Psychological Review, 121(4), 649675. 10.1037/a0037665
  110. Vandekerckhove, J., Tuerlinckx, F., & Lee, M. D. (2011). Hierarchical diffusion models for two-choice response times. Psychological Methods, 16(1), 4462. 10.1037/a0021765
  111. Van Der Velde, J., Gromann, P. M., Swart, M., Wiersma, D., De Haan, L., Bruggeman, R., Krabbendam, L., & Aleman, A. (2015). Alexithymia influences brain activation during emotion perception but not regulation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(2), 285293. 10.1093/scan/nsu056
  112. Vanheule, S., Desmet, M., Meganck, R., & Bogaerts, S. (2007). Alexithymia and interpersonal problems. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 63(1), 109117. 10.1002/jclp.20324
  113. Vanheule, S., Desmet, M., Verhaeghe, P., & Bogaerts, S. (2007). Alexithymic Depression: Evidence for a Depression Subtype? Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 76(5), 315316. 10.1159/000104710
  114. Vélez, N., & Gweon, H. (2021). Learning from other minds: An optimistic critique of reinforcement learning models of social learning. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 38, 110115. 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.01.006
  115. Vermeulen, N. (2021). Alexithymia disrupts verbal short-term memory. Cognition and Emotion, 35(3), 559568. 10.1080/02699931.2019.1701418
  116. Vermeulen, N., & Luminet, O. (2009). Alexithymia factors and memory performances for neutral and emotional words. Personality and Individual Differences, 47(4), 305309. 10.1016/j.paid.2009.03.018
  117. Voss, A., & Voss, J. (2007). Fast-dm: A free program for efficient diffusion model analysis. Behavior Research Methods, 39(4), 767775. 10.3758/BF03192967
  118. Voss, A., Voss, J., & Lerche, V. (2015). Assessing cognitive processes with diffusion model analyses: A tutorial based on fast-dm-30. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00336
  119. Welding, C., & Samur, D. (2018). Language processing in alexithymia. Alexithymia: Advances in Research, Theory, and Clinical Practice, 90104. 10.1017/9781108241595.008
  120. Wiecki, T. V., Sofer, I., & Frank, M. J. (2013). HDDM: Hierarchical Bayesian estimation of the Drift-Diffusion Model in Python. Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 7. 10.3389/fninf.2013.00014
  121. Wilson, R. C., & Collins, A. G. (2019). Ten simple rules for the computational modeling of behavioral data. eLife, 8, e49547. 10.7554/eLife.49547
  122. Wotschack, C., & Klann-Delius, G. (2013). Alexithymia and the conceptualization of emotions: A study of language use and semantic knowledge. Journal of Research in Personality, 47(5), 514523. 10.1016/j.jrp.2013.01.011
  123. Yu, L., Wang, W., Li, Z., Ren, Y., Liu, J., Jiao, L., & Xu, Q. (2024). Alexithymia modulates emotion concept activation during facial expression processing. Cerebral Cortex, 34(3), bhae071. 10.1093/cercor/bhae071
  124. Zaki, J. (2014). Empathy: A motivated account. Psychological Bulletin, 140(6), 16081647. 10.1037/a0037679
  125. Zaki, J. (2020). Integrating Empathy and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation. Annual Review of Psychology, 71(1), 517540. 10.1146/annurev-psych-010419-050830
  126. Zaki, J., Bolger, N., & Ochsner, K. (2008). It Takes Two: The Interpersonal Nature of Empathic Accuracy. Psychological Science, 19(4), 399404. 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02099.x
  127. Zaki, J., Kallman, S., Wimmer, G. E., Ochsner, K., & Shohamy, D. (2016). Social Cognition as Reinforcement Learning: Feedback Modulates Emotion Inference. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 28(9), 12701282. 10.1162/jocn_a_00978
  128. Zhang, L., Zhu, C., Ye, R., Cao, Z., Tian, Y., Yang, P., Hu, P., & Wang, K. (2011). Impairment of conflict processing in alexithymic individuals. Neuroscience Letters, 504(3), 261264. 10.1016/j.neulet.2011.09.043
  129. Zhao, X., Li, W., Xu, A., Li, X., & Shi, W. (2024). Atypical dynamic trust learning in individuals with high autistic traits in a multi-round trust game with multiple trustworthiness cues. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 118, 102481. 10.1016/j.rasd.2024.102481
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/cpsy.153 | Journal eISSN: 2379-6227
Language: English
Submitted on: Aug 5, 2025
|
Accepted on: Feb 24, 2026
|
Published on: Mar 19, 2026
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

© 2026 Mina Hosseinnezhad, Soroosh Golbabaei, Mohammad Reza Bigham, Khatereh Borhani, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.