Speed Accuracy Trade‐Off in Implicit and Explicit Emotion Recognition in Alexithymia

ABSTRACT Alexithymia is linked to emotion‐recognition difficulties, yet effects vary by processing level and trait facets. We assessed speed and accuracy for implicit and explicit emotion recognition across visual, auditory, and cross‐modal tasks. Adults ( N = 155) completed the Hindi adaptation of TAS‐20 (TAS‐20‐H) and six emotion recognition tasks: four unimodal (implicit/explicit × visual/auditory) and two cross‐modal implicit (visual–auditory; auditory–visual). Implicit tasks required speeded matching; explicit tasks required speeded labelling. Higher alexithymia, particularly difficulty identifying and describing feelings , predicted slower responses without accuracy loss on explicit tasks, indicating a speed–accuracy shift. In contrast, while on implicit tasks higher alexithymia was associated with reduced accuracy without significant slowing, on the visual implicit task it was associated with reductions in both speed and accuracy. Cross‐modally, accuracy reductions were specific to auditory targets matched to visual cues. An emotion‐recognition ability composite correlated negatively with alexithymia. Findings indicate a processing‐level dissociation (explicit: slower; implicit: less accurate) and highlight the value of analysing decision dynamics and modality, with implications for multimodal, appraisal‐focussed training.