Are increasing levels of alexithymia accompanied by poorer embodied social processing?

To date, much research on the idea that alexithymia is underpinned by a deficit in embodiment has looked to the relationship between alexithymia and measures of interoception. Few studies have looked at the relationship between levels of alexithymia and embodied social processing as a means of assessing whether there’s a deficit in embodiment in this personality construct. To this end, a sample of university students (n = 52) was administered the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Interoceptive Accuracy Scale and a level-2 visuospatial perspective taking task (a social cognitive task generally requiring embodied transformations). Multiple regression analyses showed that higher TAS-20 scores resulted in decreased performance in the visuospatial perspective taking task. Thus, statistically significant evidence was provided for the hypothesised poorer embodiment that would accompany higher levels of alexithymia. Replications of this study may opt to use a control-matched clinically alexithymic sample to better answer the research question.