Abstract
We examined the effects of negative (anger, sadness, and disgust) and positive (happiness) stimuli on face recognition (Study 1). On the basis of these results, in study 2, we examined dysfunctional memory processing of facial expressions in relation to alexithymia. In study 1, we adopted the flicker paradigm composed of change-detection and memory tasks. The results showed that negative face advantage was observed in the change-detection task, whereas the positive face advantage was observed in the memory task. In study 2, we used a visual search and change-detection tasks. The results showed that we found individual differences only in the change-detection task, suggesting that individuals with high alexithymia showed lower sensitivity for the happy faces compared to the angry faces. We assumed that individuals with high alexithymia show specific impairment in memory processes related to happy but not to angry faces.
