Alexithymia disrupts verbal short-term memory

While some research have now started to show long-term memory (LTM) deficits in alexithymia, short-term memory (STM) remained largely unexplored. We investigated whether the STM trace for emotion and neutral words might also be disrupted by alexithymia. Forty four participants were randomly assigned to study 1 in which the to-be-memorized 6-words lists were composed of words belonging to the same valence (i.e., pure lists condition, Study 1) and 44 other participants were randomly assigned to study 2 in which 6-words lists were composed of embedded neutral and emotional words (i.e., mixed lists condition). All the participants completed the Toronto-Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and a current mood states scale (PANAS). Results showed that a main effect of Alexithymia was observed in the pure lists condition while no alexithymia groups effect emerged in the mixed lists condition. In the pure lists condition only, correlation analyses confirmed that alexithymia significantly and negatively correlated with recall accuracy. The results are discussed with regard to the influence of alexithymia on the proposed role of 1) semantic organization of LTM on STM performance in the pure lists condition, and 2) attentional capture by emotion words in the mixed lists condition.尽管已有部分研究开始揭示述情障碍（alexithymia）群体存在长时记忆（LTM）缺陷，但针对其短时记忆（STM）的探索仍相对匮乏。本研究旨在探究述情障碍是否同样会破坏情绪词与中性词的短时记忆痕迹。本研究共招募88名被试，其中44名被随机分配至实验1：该实验的待记忆6词列表均由同一效价的词汇组成（即纯列表组）；另外44名被试则随机分配至实验2，其待记忆6词列表包含嵌入的中性词与情绪词（即混合列表组）。所有被试均完成了多伦多述情障碍量表（Toronto-Alexithymia Scale, TAS-20）与当前心境状态量表（PANAS）的施测。研究结果显示，在纯列表组中存在显著的述情障碍主效应，而在混合列表组中未观察到述情障碍组别效应。仅在纯列表组中，相关分析证实述情障碍与回忆正确率呈显著负相关。最后，本研究就述情障碍的影响展开讨论，涉及两方面假设机制：一是纯列表组情境下，长时记忆语义组织对短时记忆表现的作用；二是混合列表组情境下，情绪词对注意的捕获效应。