The more I am able to put my emotional experience into words, the more I can reliably recognize emotions in the faces of others

Introduction Multiple Code Theory (MCT; Bucci, 2020) maintains the importance of the ability in verbalizing and narrating one's emotional non-symbolic experience as a crucial function in human wellbeing. Such a function by which the subject's non-verbal experience is translated and expressed into words is assured by the Referential Process (RP), a psychological process that connects the information processed by the multiple sensory channels and recorded in the different formats of the experience: non-symbolic, non-verbal symbolic, verbal symbolic. The speakers' linguistic style reveals the outcome of the RP: the more the speaker expresses him/herself in a clear, vivid, concrete, and iconic form, the more connected he/she is to his/her inner emotional experience and the more he/she is able to convey it to the others. This style is measurable through computerized linguistic measures of the RP and especially through the Referential Activity (RA) index. The MCT, grounding on the contributions of relational neuroscience and infant research (Ammaniti & Gallese, 2014), assumes that RP is the result of recurrent interpersonal experiences of attunement with the embedded and non-symbolic aspects of experience of others, mainly with their emotions. So far, however, no empirical evidence demonstrated an association between the level of connection to one's inner emotional experiences, as expressed in the narration of significant memories, and the ability to understand others’ emotions. The purpose of our study was to empirically examine this association using reliable indicators such as the level of RA in one's narratives and a test of emotion recognition, "Reading the Mind in the Eye '' test, as an indicator of one's embodied relational ability to understand the feelings of others. Methods The study involved 60 adult participants who were fluent in Italian (age: M = 37.8, SD = 14.4; males = 27, females = 33). The Italian version of the "Reading the Mind in the Eye '' test (RMET; Vallante et al.., 2013), designed to assess the Theory of Mind and emotion recognition skills, was administered. In the RMET, the subject is asked to identify the emotions in 36 photographs of the eye area of human faces, selecting one of four possible alternatives for each image. The final score of the RMET is calculated by summing the number of correct answers. Subsequently, participants were individually interviewed using the Relationship Anecdotes Paradigm (RAP) interview (Luborsky, 1998), in which the interviewees are asked to narrate 10 relevant relational episodes that had occurred in their lives. The RAP interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed to be analyzed with the Italian Discourse Attributes Analysis Program software (IDAAP, Maskit, 2011). This software allows to apply the Referential Process computerized linguistic measure. This application provides as outcome some numerical indicators as the Affect Sum (AffS) that is the proportion of emotion-related words in the text, and the mean of Weighted Referential Activity Dictionary (WRAD), a measure about how concrete, specific, clear, and vivid the language is. Results A Pearson’s bivariate correlation analysis was conducted to assess the relationship between the participants' ability to recognize emotions in people's faces as measured by the RMET and the RP measures applied to the RAP interviews. The RMET scores correlated positively with the WRAD scores of both the entire RAP interview (r = 0.26, p = .049) and of the single episode with the highest level of WRAD (r = 0.40, p = .002), among the 10 narrated. No correlation was observed between the use of affect related words (AffS) and the accuracy of emotion recognition in the RMET, both when the entire RAP interview (r = - 0.02, p = .81), or the episode with the highest AffS score (r = - 0.03, p = .88) were considered. Conclusion The results show an association between the ability to vividly verbalize an affectively salient memory and the ability to recognize an emotional expression in another person's face. The association probably derives from the fact that both tasks require a similar translation of emotional information from a non-symbolic format to a symbolic and verbal one; then, consequently, we suppose that people who dissociate their emotions to a greater extent, encounter similar difficulties in both tasks. A further possible interpretation of this result, which does not exclude the previously mentioned one, is that the difficulty in recognizing emotions on another person's face makes it tougher for the individual to encode and impress in the memory system vivid and detailed information about the significant relational episodes the people live. In this case, emotions have been dissociated or inaccurately recognized from the very beginning, impairing, thus, both the encoding and the recollection of the events. The absence of correlation between the RMET and the AffS scores is equally informative: it suggests that naming and labeling the affects and emotions is quite a different process from describing them in a concrete e vividly manner, as measured by RA. Accordingly, describing emotions in abstract and general words is not a sign of being able to connect with one's own emotional experience and that of others. Overall, from a clinical perspective, the results suggest that, particularly in the treatment of these patients who have difficulty identifying emotions, greater emphasis should be placed on helping them to give voices, images, and concrete words their own and others' experiences. The clinician should also pay greater attention to ensuring that his or her own facial expressions and non-symbolic modes of emotional communication are not misunderstood by the client. Finally, it should be noted that the observed association between RMET and WRAD is also relevant from a theoretical perspective. This association suggests that the ability to be in touch with one’s own emotions is inherently an embodied and relational process, not a merely cognitive function. Individuals who can produce the most detailed, vivid, specific and complete narratives are also those who can most accurately recognize the emotions of others through their bodily expressions. This result confirms the deep connection between relational processes and Referential Activity, a point that has been emphasized in the recent literature on MCT (Bucci, 2020). Riferimenti bibliografici (max 5) 1) Ammaniti, M., & Gallese, V. (2014). La nascita della intersoggettività, Lo sviluppo del Sé tra psicodinamica e neurobiologia. Raffaello Cortina. 2) Bucci, W. (2020). Converging perspectives on emotional change in the interpersonal field. In Cornell, W. F., & Bucci, W. (Ed.). Emotional communication and therapeutic change: Understanding psychotherapy through multiple code theory (pp. 133-158). Routledge. 3) Grabe, H. J., Spitzer, C., & Freyberger, H. J. (2004). Alexithymia and personality in relation to dimensions of psychopathology. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(7), 1299-1301. 4) Luborsky, L., & Crits-Christoph P. (1990). Understanding Transference. The Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method. Basic Books 5) Vellante, M., Baron-Cohen, S., Melis, M., Marrone, M., Petretto, D. R., Masala, C., & Preti, A. (2013). The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test: Systematic review of psychometric properties and a validation study in Italy. Cognitive neuropsychiatry, 18(4), 326-354.