Individual Differences in Emotional Awareness and the Lateralized Processing of Emotion

Right hemisphere dysfunction as well as an interhemispheric deficit were indicated by the behavior of early attentional (P100) and later semantic (N400, P300) components in the High Alexithymic (HA) group. Many of these effects were emotion-specific, but some were not. A P100 selective attention deficit indicating reduced right hemisphere (RH) involvement in individuals scoring high in alexithymia was correlated with a failure to differentiate emotional valence when interhemispheric communication was required. Gender moderated several effects. Most notably, only female HAs exhibited: (1) an N170 that was larger over the posterior RH than left hemisphere (LH), suggesting higher autonomic arousal, and (2) a lack of differentiation by N400 of facial expressions over the posterior RH when interhemispheric communication was required. These effects were not correlated, indicating they occurred in different HA females. This may be explained by the existence in the sample of mild subtypes resembling both Type I (absence of experience of emotion, related to a right hemisphere deficit) and Type II (experience intact with cognitions about emotion absent, related to an interhemispheric deficit) alexithymics, as distinguished by Bermond (1995). Well-validated measures for distinguishing between these subtypes are not currently available.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Taitano, Elizabeth Keolani

Contributors dc:contributor

• Miller, Gregory A.

• Psychology, Physiological

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9990155

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82326