Objectives: Alexithymia involves difficulty identifying and describing emotions and has been linked to a variety\r\nof psychological problems, particularly exposure to trauma, interpersonal difficulties, and depression. Currently,\r\nalexithymia is most commonly assessed through self- report questionnaires. A neuropsychological test may be a\r\nmore valid assessment of alexithymia because it uses a performance-based design and focuses on the underlying\r\ncognitive process in question: affective-processing. This impaired processing may be useful in testing an explanatory\r\nmodel for the relationship between trauma exposure and the subsequent development of alexithymia, interpersonal\r\nproblems, and depression.\r\nParticipants and methods: Fifty-three undergraduate students pre-screened for trauma exposure, were\r\ngiven questionnaires measuring alexithymia, interpersonal problems, and depression, and then administered\r\na neuropsychological test of Auditory-Affective Perception (AAP). Correlational analyses compared the\r\nneuropsychological measure with the alexithymia questionnaire. A hierarchical regression tested a meditational\r\nmodel.\r\nResults: Performance on the neuropsychological measure of AAP did not significantly correlate with the\r\nalexithymia questionnaire (p>0.05). Alexithymia was found to partially mediate between trauma exposure and\r\ndepression (p=0.03). The over-all model was significant,\r\nF(2.50)=25.17, p<0.001, adjusted-R2=0.48.\r\nConclusions: Regression analyses supported self-reported alexithymia as a partial mediator of the relationship\r\nbetween trauma exposure and depression, suggesting that depressive symptoms developed following trauma\r\nexposure are partially related to the development of alexithymic symptoms. AAP performance was not significantly\r\ncorrelated with the measure of alexithymia suggesting self-reported alexithymic symptoms are independent of the\r\nability to recognize auditorially-presented emotions; possible explanations and theoretical implications are discussed.
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