RESUMO
Alexithymia is a clinically relevant personality trait characterized by poor emotional awareness and associated with several psychological and physical health concerns. Individuals with high alexithymia tend to engage in experiential avoidance and this may mediate psychological distress. However, little is known about what specific processes of experiential avoidance are involved, and the nature of the relation between alexithymia, experiential avoidance, and psychological distress remains unclear at a latent construct level. To examine this relationship at the latent construct level, a representative sample of 693 U.S. adults completed alexithymia (TAS-20, BVAQ, PAQ), general distress (DASS-21), multi-dimensional experiential avoidance (MEAQ), and general health (PROMIS-G-10) questionnaires. Structural equation modeling revealed that alexithymia significantly predicted experiential avoidance (ß = 0.966, t = 82.383, p < .01), experiential avoidance significantly predicted general distress (ß = 0.810, t = 2.017, p < .05), and experiential avoidance fully mediated the relationship between alexithymia and general distress (ßindirect = -0.159, t = -0.398, p > .05). Correlations between alexithymia and experiential avoidance subfactors revealed a strong relationship to the repression and denial subfactor. Experiential avoidance is a promising target for clinical interventions, though longitudinal research is necessary to elucidate how the relationship between alexithymia and experiential avoidance unfolds over time.
RESUMO
The medial olivocochlear reflex has been hypothesized to improve the detection and discrimination of dynamic signals in noisy backgrounds. This hypothesis was tested here by comparing behavioral outcomes with otoacoustic emissions. The effects of a precursor on amplitude-modulation (AM) detection were measured for a 1- and 6-kHz carrier at levels of 40, 60, and 80 dB SPL in a two-octave-wide noise masker with a level designed to produce poor, but above-chance, performance. Three types of precursor were used: a two-octave noise band, an inharmonic complex tone, and a pure tone. Precursors had the same overall level as the simultaneous noise masker that immediately followed the precursor. The noise precursor produced a large improvement in AM detection for both carrier frequencies and at all three levels. The complex tone produced a similarly large improvement in AM detection at the highest level but had a smaller effect for the two lower carrier levels. The tonal precursor did not significantly affect AM detection in noise. Comparisons of behavioral thresholds and medial olivocochlear efferent effects on stimulus frequency otoacoustic emissions measured with similar stimuli did not support the hypothesis that efferent-based reduction of cochlear responses contributes to the precursor effects on AM detection.