posted on 2023-05-19, 01:49authored byCraparo, G, Gori, A, Dell'Aera, S, Costanzo, G, Fasciano, S, Tomasello, A, Vicario, CM
Several investigations document altered emotion processing in opiate addiction. Nevertheless, the origin of this phenomenon remains unclear. Here we examined the role of alexithymia in the ability (i.e., number of errors - accuracy and reaction times - RTs) of thirty-one heroin addicts and thirty-one healthy controls to detect several affective expressions. Results show generally lower accuracy and higher RTs in the recognition of facial expressions of emotions for patients, compared to controls. The hierarchical multivariate regression analysis shows that alexithymia might be responsible of the between groups difference with respect to the RTs in emotion detection. Overall, we provide new insights in the clinical interpretation of affective deficits in heroin addicts suggesting a role of alexithymia in their ability to recognize emotions.
History
Publication title
PeerJ
Volume
4
Article number
e1864
Number
e1864
Pagination
1-11
ISSN
2167-8359
Department/School
School of Psychological Sciences
Publisher
PeerJ Inc
Place of publication
United States
Rights statement
Copyright 2016 Craparo et al. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/