Furthering the language hypothesis of alexithymia: An integrated review and meta-analysis

Journal article

Alexithymia, including the inability to identify and express one’s own feelings, is a subclinical condition responsible for some of the socioemotional symptoms seen across a range of psychiatric conditions. The language hypothesis of alexithymia posits a language-mediated disruption in the development of discrete emotion concepts from ambiguous affective states, exacerbating the risk of developing alexithymia in language-impaired individuals. To provide a critical evaluation, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 29 empirical studies of language functioning in alexithymia was performed. A modest association was found between alexithymia and multi-domain language deficits (r = -.14), including structural language, pragmatics, and propensity to use emotional language. A more theoretically-relevant subsample analysis comparing alexithymia levels in language-impaired and typical individuals revealed larger effects, but a limited number of studies adopted this approach. A synthesis of 11 emotional granularity studies also found an association between alexithymia and reduced emotional granularity (r = -.10). Language impairments seem to increase the risk of alexithymia. Heterogeneous samples and methods suggest the need for studies with improved alexithymia assessments.

Authors: Lee, KS; Murphy, J; Catmur, C; Bird, G; Hobson, H

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
• Volume: 141
• Article number: 104864
• Publication date: 2022-09-08
• Acceptance date: 2022-09-04
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104864
• ISSN: 0149-7634
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR