Alexithymia predicts the malleability of bodily representations in adolescents

Abstract

Background: Body-ownership involves an attentional focus on and awareness of internal body sensations. While it is known that abnormalities in body-ownership occur in eating disorders, relevant psychological variables modulating body-ownership remain unclear. First empirical results evidence that body-ownership is associated with alexithymia in adults. Therefore, we wanted to explore the relationship between alexithymia and body-ownership in adolescents in more detail. Methods: 54 (28 female) participants aged between 11 and 17 years were examined. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale, a common self-report questionnaire, was used to assess affective and cognitive aspects of alexithymia. A multi-sensory-induced manipulation of body-ownership, the rubberhand illusion (RHI), was then introduced, probing the malleability of body ownership and operationalizing the strength of the illusion using behavioural (proprioceptive drift), physiological (temperature change) and introspective measures (subjective feelings). Findings: High scores in alexithymia (affective subscale difficulties in identifying feeling) were associated with a stronger body-illusion tendency (behavioral and subjective measures). Discussion: The observed positive relationship between alexithymia and the RHI suggests an increased malleability of the bodily self in adolescents which might serve as risk-factor for disturbed embodiment.