Early adversity has been consistently linked to mental health outcomes, but the underlying pathways remain unclear. One previous study found an association between early adversity and trait emotional awareness (EA), which has itself been linked to health outcomes, but links to mental health were not explicitly examined. The aim of the current study was to test the hypothesis that the association between early adversity and health can be partially accounted for by differences in EA within a large student sample (n = 196). Participants completed measures of early adversity, EA, and current emotional functioning (i.e., depression, anxiety, somatization, positive/negative affect). Bayesian analyses found the most evidence for models with an interaction between sex and early adversity in predicting emotional functioning - revealing the expected negative relationship between early adversity and EA in females, but a positive relationship in males. Early adversity, but not EA, was associated with depression, anxiety, and implicit negative affect. Only explicit positive affect was associated with both early adversity and EA, and EA partially mediated the negative association between early adversity and positive affect. These results provide limited support for EA as a mediating pathway for the effects of early adversity on mental health.

BACKGROUND: The present longitudinal investigation had two major goals. First, we intended to clarify whether depressed patients are characterized by impairments of emotional awareness for the self and the other during acute illness and whether these impairments diminish in the course of an inpatient psychiatric treatment program. Previous research based on the performance measure Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) provided inconsistent findings concerning emotional self-awareness in clinical depression. Second, we investigated whether cognitive and affective empathic abilities change from acute illness to recovery in depressed patients.
METHODS: Fifty-eight depressed patients were tested on admission and after 6-8 weeks of inpatient psychiatric treatment. A sample of fifty-three healthy individuals were also examined twice at an interval of 6-8 weeks. The LEAS and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) were administered to assess emotional awareness and empathic abilities. Written texts were digitalized and then analyzed using the electronic scoring program geLEAS, the German electronic Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale.
RESULTS: Depressed patients reported more depressive symptoms than healthy controls and less severe depressive symptomatology at time 2 compared to time 1. Independent of time, depressed individuals tended to show lower geLEAS self scores and had lower geLEAS other scores than healthy individuals. Depressed patients showed higher personal distress scores than healthy individuals at both measurement times. No group differences were observed for the cognitive empathy scales of the IRI (perspective taking and fantasy) and empathic concern, but empathic concern decreased significantly in depressed patients from time 1 to time 2. Empathic abilities as assessed by the IRI were not significantly correlated with emotional awareness for others, neither in the whole sample, nor in the patient and control subsample.
CONCLUSIONS: Depressed patients seem to be characterized by impairments in emotional awareness of others during acute illness and recovery, but they also tend to show deficits in emotional self-awareness compared to healthy individuals. Self-reported cognitive empathic abilities seem to be at normal levels in depressed patients, but their heightened self-focused affective empathy may represent a vulnerability factor for depressive disorders.

BACKGROUND: Mentalization, which is integral to human cognitive processes, pertains to the interpretation of one\'s own and others\' mental states, including emotions, beliefs, and intentions. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and the prominence of large language models in mental health applications, questions persist about their aptitude in emotional comprehension. The prior iteration of the large language model from OpenAI, ChatGPT-3.5, demonstrated an advanced capacity to interpret emotions from textual data, surpassing human benchmarks. Given the introduction of ChatGPT-4, with its enhanced visual processing capabilities, and considering Google Bard\'s existing visual functionalities, a rigorous assessment of their proficiency in visual mentalizing is warranted.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the research was to critically evaluate the capabilities of ChatGPT-4 and Google Bard with regard to their competence in discerning visual mentalizing indicators as contrasted with their textual-based mentalizing abilities.
METHODS: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test developed by Baron-Cohen and colleagues was used to assess the models\' proficiency in interpreting visual emotional indicators. Simultaneously, the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale was used to evaluate the large language models\' aptitude in textual mentalizing. Collating data from both tests provided a holistic view of the mentalizing capabilities of ChatGPT-4 and Bard.
RESULTS: ChatGPT-4, displaying a pronounced ability in emotion recognition, secured scores of 26 and 27 in 2 distinct evaluations, significantly deviating from a random response paradigm (P<.001). These scores align with established benchmarks from the broader human demographic. Notably, ChatGPT-4 exhibited consistent responses, with no discernible biases pertaining to the sex of the model or the nature of the emotion. In contrast, Google Bard\'s performance aligned with random response patterns, securing scores of 10 and 12 and rendering further detailed analysis redundant. In the domain of textual analysis, both ChatGPT and Bard surpassed established benchmarks from the general population, with their performances being remarkably congruent.
CONCLUSIONS: ChatGPT-4 proved its efficacy in the domain of visual mentalizing, aligning closely with human performance standards. Although both models displayed commendable acumen in textual emotion interpretation, Bard\'s capabilities in visual emotion interpretation necessitate further scrutiny and potential refinement. This study stresses the criticality of ethical AI development for emotional recognition, highlighting the need for inclusive data, collaboration with patients and mental health experts, and stringent governmental oversight to ensure transparency and protect patient privacy.

UNASSIGNED: Evidence suggests that emotional awareness-the ability to identify and label emotions-may be impaired in schizophrenia and related to positive symptom severity. Exposure to childhood maltreatment is a risk factor for both low emotional awareness and positive symptoms.
UNASSIGNED: The current investigation examines associations between a performance-based measure of emotional awareness, positive symptom severity, and childhood maltreatment exposure in 44 individuals with a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and 48 healthy comparison participants using the electronic Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (eLEAS), Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ).
UNASSIGNED: Patients demonstrated significant deficits in emotional awareness overall, which was true for both self and others. In patients, lower emotional awareness was significantly associated with more severe positive symptoms. Emotional awareness was significantly impaired in patients with schizophrenia with self-reported maltreatment exposure, relative to other groups. Severity of maltreatment was not significantly associated with emotional awareness or positive symptoms when looking continuously, and there was no significant indirect effect.
UNASSIGNED: These data suggest that emotional awareness impairments observed in schizophrenia may be exacerbated by exposure to childhood maltreatment, possibly putting individuals at greater risk for experiencing positive symptoms of psychosis.

Children and adolescents with externalizing problems show physiological hypo-reactivity toward affective stimuli, which may relate to their disruptive, antisocial, and thrill-seeking behaviors. This study examines differences in explicit and implicit emotion regulation between preadolescents with and without externalizing problems as well as the role of emotion regulation in subjective and autonomic responses to emotional stimuli. Preadolescents showing self- and other-reported externalizing psychopathology, and a control sample, without such difficulties, participated in a passive affective picture-viewing task with neutral, fearful, joyful, and sad images, while their heart rate and heart rate variability were measured. Participants also reported on their emotion regulation difficulties using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Compared to controls, youths scoring high on externalizing problems (1) reported greater emotion regulation difficulties, especially a lack of emotional clarity and difficulty in controlling impulsive actions, (2) showed higher resting heart rate variability and a lower resting heart rate, suggestive of higher emotion/autonomic regulation ability, and (3) showed both subjective and physiological hypo-arousal to emotional pictures. Heart rate variability and, to a lesser degree difficulties in emotional clarity, modulated the effects of emotional pictures on subjective and physiological arousal. Findings suggest that interventions to improve emotion regulation and awareness may help to prevent externalizing problems.

UNASSIGNED: Interoceptive deficits are associated with difficulties in identifying and regulating emotions. However, research on interoception after acquired brain injury (ABI) is scarce, and its relationship with emotional difficulties in this population is unknown. This study aimed to (1) examine differences in self-reported alexithymia, performance-based emotional awareness, emotion regulation, depression, and interoceptive sensibility between ABI and control individuals; and (2) analyze the role of adaptive interoceptive dimensions in these emotional processes after ABI.
UNASSIGNED: Forty-three individuals with ABI and 42 matched control individuals completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-2, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.
UNASSIGNED: Compared to the control group, individuals with ABI showed reduced tendency to ignore unpleasant sensations increased severity of depressive symptoms, as well as tendencies to have greater difficulties in emotion regulation and lower emotional awareness. Additionally, interoceptive dimensions such as trusting, as well as not-distracting from and not-worrying about bodily sensations, played a relevant role in explaining lower alexithymia and difficulties in emotion regulation. Moreover, lower alexithymia and emotion dysregulation were related to less depressive symptoms. These relationships were invariant across ABI and control individuals.
UNASSIGNED: Although individuals with ABI may have different levels of emotional abilities compared to non-ABI individuals, the relationship patterns between interoceptive and emotional processes appear to be similar between the two groups. This study suggests the potential benefit of addressing both interoceptive and emotional difficulties in treatments targeting such prevalent sequelae of ABI as depressive symptoms.

OBJECTIVE: How we express and describe emotion is shaped by sociocultural norms. These sociocultural norms may also affect emotional self-awareness, i.e., how we identify and make sense of our own emotions. Previous studies have found lower emotional self-awareness in East Asian compared to Western samples using self-report measures. However, studies using behavioural methods did not provide clear evidence of reduced emotional self-awareness in East Asian groups. This may be due to different measurement tools capturing different facets of emotional self-awareness.
RESULTS: To investigate this issue further, we compared the emotional self-awareness of Japanese (n = 29) and United Kingdom (UK) (n = 43) adults using the self-report Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), alongside two behavioural measures - the Emotional Consistency Task (EC-Task) and the Photo Emotion Differentiation Task (PED-Task). Japanese adults showed higher TAS-20 scores than UK participants, indicating greater self-reported difficulties with emotional self-awareness. Japanese participants also had lower EC-Task scores than UK adults, indicating a lower ability to differentiate between levels of emotional intensity. PED-Task performance did not show clear group differences. These findings suggest that cross-cultural differences in emotional self-awareness vary with the task used, because different tasks assess distinct aspects of this ability. Future research should attempt to capture these different aspects of emotional self-awareness.

Emotional awareness supports emotion regulation. Psychologists have children \"color in feelings\" to assess emotional awareness, yet whether this relates to emotion regulation is unknown. The present study used a novel coloring task examining behaviors related to coloring in and dictating emotions to assess children\'s (N=95) emotional awareness. Further, it was tested whether performance on this task predicted emotion regulation. Children\'s coloring behaviors indicating physiological emotional awareness predicted better emotion regulation. Results may inform the use of emotional awareness tasks in community and clinical settings. Findings also suggest that physiological emotional awareness may be a more salient clinical target in children.

Objective: This study was designed to explore the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting Scale (IMP-S). Method : This cross-sectional and psychometric study was performed on a sample of 491 parents in Iran who had at least one child in their home and were selected using the convenient sampling method. The Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting Scale (IMP-S), Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, Parental Authority Questionnaire, and the Forms of Self-Criticizing/Attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale were ‎conducted on the sample. The validity of the IMP-S was assessed by factor analysis and Pearson correlation coefficients, while reliability was calculated by Cronbach\'s alpha. Results: At first, the whole data was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis based on the original English version of the IMP-S. The proposed hypothesized factor solution was not good enough (CMIN / DF = 7.06. RSMEA = 0.081, CFI = 0.732, SRMR = 0.0860). Exploratory factor analysis and parallel analysis led to a three-factor structure for the 28 items, which included mindfulness toward the child, mindfulness about oneself and emotional awareness of parenting. The results of confirmatory factor analysis showed that the data was more fitted with this new three-factor solution (CMIN / DF = 2.06, CFI = 0.82, NFI = 0.715, RMSEA = 0.065, SRMR = 0.0795). The IMP-S was found to have a positive correlation with trait mindfulness, reassured self, and authoritative parenting style, whereas this association for the IMP-S and hatred self, inadequate self, and authoritarian parenting style was negative. The reliability of the whole scale was 0.84 and it was 0.77, 0.83, and 0.68 for the first, second, and third subscales, respectively. Conclusion: It seems that the Persian version of the IMP-S with three factors can better evaluate mindful parenting among the Iranian population. In contrast to people from other countries, Iranian people perceive mindfulness toward themselves and their children during parenting practice as two distinct issues.

This study evaluated the potential of ChatGPT, a large language model, to generate mentalizing-like abilities that are tailored to a specific personality structure and/or psychopathology. Mentalization is the ability to understand and interpret one\'s own and others\' mental states, including thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPD) are characterized by distinct patterns of emotional regulation. Individuals with BPD tend to experience intense and unstable emotions, while individuals with SPD tend to experience flattened or detached emotions. We used ChatGPT\'s free version 23.3 and assessed the extent to which its responses akin to emotional awareness (EA) were customized to the distinctive personality structure-character characterized by Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPD), employing the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS). ChatGPT was able to accurately describe the emotional reactions of individuals with BPD as more intense, complex, and rich than those with SPD. This finding suggests that ChatGPT can generate mentalizing-like responses consistent with a range of psychopathologies in line with clinical and theoretical knowledge. However, the study also raises concerns regarding the potential for stigmas or biases related to mental diagnoses to impact the validity and usefulness of chatbot-based clinical interventions. We emphasize the need for the responsible development and deployment of chatbot-based interventions in mental health, which considers diverse theoretical frameworks.