The impact of memory enhancement on emotion processing

Abstract

Alexithymia, a cognitive-affective impairment, involves difficulties in recognizing and expressing emotions, and is linked to impaired memory function. This study investigates the relationship between memory and emotion processing. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) was administered to 141 participants, 76 of which scored high (> 51) indicating likelihood of alexithymia. First, participants underwent an Emotional Stroop Task (EST) to assess emotion processing, then were randomly assigned to either verbal or sham training groups, where they either completed a botanical name memorization task or watched two short silent movies. Post-training, both groups completed the EST again and underwent cognitive tests to assess memory capacity differences. I hypothesize that the verbal training group will show improvements in emotion processing as well as greater memory function as compared with the sham group. A significant positive correlation was found between TAS scores and EST reaction times for emotional words, indicating a relationship between emotion processing times and alexithymic traits. As for the effects of the verbal training, independent sample t-tests demonstrated that differences in emotion processing times between low and high TAS scorers were reduced. Within the sham training group, high TAS scorers had significantly slower emotion processing than low TAS scorers, but in the verbal training group, no differences were found in emotion processing between high and low TAS scorers. This study’s pivotal finding underscores the impact of verbal training on automatic emotion processing. Despite no observable differences in memory capacity post-verbal training, a notable improvement emerged in the automatic processing of emotion.