Selective impairment of decision making under ambiguity in alexithymia

BMC Psychiatry

Research Article

Yu Zhu¹  Xue Wang¹  Hongchen Li¹  Chunyan Zhu²  Lei Zhang²  Fengqiong Yu²  Kai Wang³ 

[1] Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China;Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorder and Mental Health, Hefei, Anhui Province, China;Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China;Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorder and Mental Health, Hefei, Anhui Province, China;Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China;Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China;Department of Medical Psychology, Chaohu Clinical Medical College, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China;Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorder and Mental Health, Hefei, Anhui Province, China;Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China;

关键词: Alexithymia;    Decision making;    TAS-20;    Ambiguity;    Risk;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12888-017-1537-2

 received in 2017-02-21, accepted in 2017-11-10,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAlexithymia is characterised by difficulties identifying and describing emotions. Few studies have investigated how alexithymia influences decision-making under different conditions (ambiguity and risk). This study aimed to examine whether alexithymia contributes to impairment in decision-making.MethodThis study included 42 participants with high scores in the Chinese version of Toronto Alexithymia Scale (alexithymia group), and 44 matched subjects with low scores (control group). Decision-making was measured using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Game of Dice Task (GDT).ResultsThe main findings of this study revealed selective deficits in IGT performance for the alexithymia group, while GDT performance was unimpaired when compared with the control group. In IGT, total netscores were lower for the alexithymia group compared to the control group, particularly with regard to block 5. Moreover, the alexithymia individuals selected significantly more adverse cards than the controls, indicating significant decision-making impairments.ConclusionAlexithymia selectively influences decision-making under ambiguity.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017