Theory of mind impairment in youngsters affected by alexithymia / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

ObjectiveTo study theory of mind(TOM) of youngsters in alexithymia,and to assess the impairment in TOM by analysing affective and cognitive TOM and the first and second order judgment.MethodsTOM of 31 alexithymics and 30 healthy control subjects get be examined by the Chinese version of “Yoni task” and series of tests.ResultsThere were significant differences in affective TOM accuracy scores between alexithymics and healthy controls ( ( 35.81 ± 6.30) vs ( 39.83 ± 6.02),t =-2.55,P ＜ 0.05 ).Particularly,alexithymics got significantly lower accuracy scores in the second order judgement of affective TOM ( (24.55 ±6.01 ) vs (28.80 ± 6.04),t =-2.76,P ＜ 0.01 ).However,there were no in cognitive TOM accuracy scores between alexithymics and health controls ( ( 19.00 ± 2.11 ) vs ( 19.43 ± 2.13 ),t =-0.80,P ＞ 0.05 ).ConclusionAlexithymics are impaired in affective TOM,specially the second order judgement.