r = .092, p = .496, affective dimension: r = .024, p = .861) and reaction time (RT, cognitive dimension: r = 2.174, p = .197, affective dimension: r = 2.093, p = .489). As shown in figure 2, both alexithymia dimensions correlated significantly with error rates during the more difficult identification of emotional prosody in task 3 (affective dimension: r = .309, p = .020, cognitive dimension: r = .359, p = .007), which were found to result from increased error rates during the identification of disgusted prosody only. Correlations with the separate BVAQ subscales showed that the correlation between the affective dimension and error rates was driven only by the fantasizing subscale (r = .355, p = .007), while the correlation between the cognitive dimension and error rates was driven by all three cognitive subscales (identifying: r = .333, p = .012, verbalizing: r = .266, p = .048, analyzing: r = .366, p = .006). Error rates on the identification of emotional intensity were unrelated to either alexithymia dimension (p..05). In summary, both alexithymia dimensions were associated with significantly worse performance on the identification of disgusted prosody, while performance on emotional intensity identification was unrelated to alexithymia. ERP data: Unattended processing of emotional prosody Figure 3 (left panel) shows the eMMN and lMMN elicited by deviants in emotional prosody (happy, angry, sad, and disgusted The Sound of Feelings deviants averaged) versus neutral standards during unattended processing in task 1 (grand average across all subjects at the frontal electrode site Fz). All main effects and interactions for amplitudes and latencies of the eMMN and lMMN are summarized in table 1 (affective alexithymia dimension) and table 2 (cognitive alexithy- mia dimension). EMMN. RM-MANCOVA showed that peak amplitudes of the eMMN did not differ as a function of alexithymia. EMMN peak latency, however, was associated with the cognitive, but not the affective alexithymia dimension, as a significant interaction cognitive dimension 6 laterality revealed [F(2,108) = 4.160, p = .018], suggesting that the eMMN peaked significantly earlier in the left hemisphere and tended to peak later in the right hemisphere with increasing scores on the cognitive alexithymia dimension. Follow up tests on each cognitive subscale showed that this interaction was driven by difficulty verbalizing feelings [F(2,108) = 3.852, p = .024] and difficulty identifying feelings [F(2,108) = 34.232, p = .017]. In addition, difficulty identifying feelings interacted with emotion [F(3,126) = 3.828, p = .011], indicating that for disgusted prosody only, eMMN peak latencies were delayed with increasing difficulty identifying feelings. LMMN. Peak latencies and amplitudes of the lMMN did not differ as a function of either alexithymia dimension, suggesting that alexithymia did not affect the global processing of unattended changes in emotional speech. Figure 2. Behavioral Results: Identification of Emotional Prosody. Behavioral results of emotional prosody identification (task 3). Top panel: Correlation between the affective and the cognitive alexithymia dimension with error rates. Bottom panel: Correlations of the cognitive subscales ‘difficulty identifying feelings’ (left), ‘difficulty analyzing feelings’ (middle) and of the fantasizing subscale of the affective alexithymia dimension (right) with error rates. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036951.g002 PLoS ONE | www.plosone.org 7 May 2012 | Volume 7 | Issue 5 | e36951