Do I experience anxiety, anger, and happiness in the same way as you do? A relational approach to emotion qualia across levels of alexithymia
PsyArXiv Preprints October 29, 2026 preprint DOI: osf:eu8qf_v5 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Registered Report (proposed experimental study) Pilot study Qualitative |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 679 |
| Population | Pilot study participants; planned experiments will compare individuals scoring high and low in alexithymia |
| Topics | Anxiety |
| Keywords | Alexithymia Consciousness Emotion Qualia Similarity Structure Perception Cognitive psychology |
| Key findings | Proposes a relational, similarity-judgment approach to characterize emotional experience as structure while minimizing reliance on language, and plans to test whether people high and low in alexithymia differ in the structure and consistency of their judgments. A pilot study (N = 679) supports the feasibility of the design. |
Abstract
Do people experience emotions in the same way? How can we characterize the sameness of emotional quality? Qualitative aspects of emotional experience are usually communicated through words. However, words can be ambiguous and can mean different things to different people. Here, we introduce a relational approach, which minimizes the reliance on language yet characterizes emotional experiences as structure, based on similarity judgments among emotion-evoking videos. This Registered Report will apply this method to characterize a psychological condition of “alexithymia,” which is described as “no words for emotions”. In two experiments, participants will rate the similarity between successive videos, based on the feelings evoked by the videos. Repeated video pairs will measure the degree of consistency in their similarity judgments. We will test whether individuals scoring high and low in alexithymia differ in the structure and consistency of their judgments. To disentangle the structures driven by sensory, rather than emotional, aspects of the videos, we will run a control experiment where participants rate the similarity of videos, ignoring the evoked emotions. A pilot study (N = 679) supports the feasibility of this design. By bypassing verbal reports, our approach can inform the study of emotional experience and help to clarify the nature of alexithymia.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on anxiety, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| A PILOT STUDY OF GROUP MINDFULNESS-BASED COGNITIVE THERAPY (MBCT) FOR COMBAT VETERANS WITH POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) Veterans with chronic combat posttraumatic stress disorder seeking treatment at a VA... | 2013 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual comparison group | n = 37 |
| Being present in the face of existential threat: The role of trait mindfulness in reducing defensive responses to mortality salience. | 2010 | Experimental study | |
| Neural correlates of mindfulness meditation-related anxiety relief Healthy adults with no prior meditation experience | 2013 | Within-subjects experimental study | n = 15 |
| Intensive mindfulness training-related changes in cognitive and emotional experience Community adults | 2009 | Quasi-experimental and longitudinal | n = 69 |
| Prospective examination of synthetic 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine inhalation: effects on salivary IL-6, cortisol levels, affect, and non-judgment Volunteers | 2019 | Within-subjects experimental study | n = 11 |