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This study investigates whether a not informative, irrelevant emotional reaction of disgust interferes with decision-making under uncertainty. We manipulate the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) by associating a disgust-eliciting image with selections from Disadvantageous/Bad decks (Congruent condition) or Advantageous/Good decks (Incongruent condition). A Control condition without manipulations is also included. Results indicate an increased probability of selecting from a Good deck as the task unfolds in all conditions. However, this effect is modulated by the experimental manipulation. Specifically, we detect a detrimental effect (i.e., a significant decrease in the intercept) of the disgust-eliciting image in Incongruent condition (vs. Control), but this effect is limited to the early stages of the task (i.e., first twenty trials). No differences in performance trends are detected between Congruent and Control conditions. Anticipatory Skin Conductance Response, heart rate, and pupil dilation are also assessed as indexes of anticipatory autonomic activation following the Somatic Marker Hypothesis, but no effects are shown for the first two indexes in any of the conditions. Only a decreasing trend is detected for pupil dilation as the task unfolds in Control and Incongruent conditions. Results are discussed in line with the "risk as feelings" framework, the Somatic Marker Hypothesis, and IGT literature.

The long-standing hypothesis that emotions rely on bodily states is back in the spotlight. This has led some researchers to suggest that alexithymia, a personality construct characterized by altered emotional awareness, reflects a general deficit in interoception. However, tests of this hypothesis have relied on heterogeneous assessment methods, leading to inconsistent results. To shed some light on this issue, we administered a battery of self-report questionnaires of interoception and alexithymia to three samples from Italy, the U.S., and Singapore (N = 814). Correlation and machine learning analyses showed that alexithymia was associated with deficits in both subjective interoceptive accuracy and attention. Alexithymics' interoceptive deficits were primarily related to difficulty identifying and describing feelings. Interoception showed a weaker association with externally-oriented thinking as operationalized by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and no association with the affective dimension of alexithymia later introduced by the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ). We discuss our results with reference to the theoretical and psychometric differences between these two measures of alexithymia and their shortcomings. Overall, our results support the view that interoceptive deficits are a core component of alexithymia, although the latter cannot be reduced to the former.