PONE-D-21-13329

Do Alexithymia and Negative Affect Predict Poor Sleep Quality? The Moderating Role of Interoceptive Sensibility

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yen,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please find the reviewer reports from two reviewers below. Both reviewers have asked for additional clarifications in the methodology and presentation of the study.

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: ID: PONE-D-21-13329

Title: Do Alexithymia and Negative Affect Predict Poor Sleep Quality? The Moderating Role of Interoceptive Sensibility

Thank you for providing a chance to review this manuscript.

Comment:

Major revision.

Detailed information:

Introduction

Your introduction takes up nearly half of the entire article. Please write more concisely and distill your key points.

Page 10-11 Line172-181: The purpose of the research in the introduction is very similar to the abstract. Please describe the corresponding theoretical support and hypotheses, and highlight the practical significance of your research.

Page 10-11 Line176, “IS (MAIA)”: This is really confusing.

Materials and Methods

Participants

Page 11 Line186-187, "3) normal vision (with or without correction)": Is this inclusion criterion necessary? And how do you manage the missing data?

Measurements

Page 11: You mentioned PSQI is a Chinese version, it’s a traditional one or simplified one? And how about the other measures? Did you use Chinese version too? If so, have they been validated? What’s the measurement properties of them? They should be concisely reported with details.

Procedure

Page 14: What is the response rate for obtaining data through online surveys? How do you control data quality?

Results

Page 20 Table 4: What is the meaning of R² if it’s too small? Furthermore, what is meaning of the regression model considering all R²s are small?

Discussion

Page 21-22 Line 321-347: The “discussion” should be resented with the order of “results” are presented. What’s more, this part is a bit confusing, please be more organized and refined.

Taking all the comments above into consideration, this paper is interesting and written with a lot of work, but some issues may still need to be reconsidered. I hope you can further adjust the construct of your content. And it is of great importance to request a native English speaker to check your writing and make the expression more understandable.

My bests.

Your reviewer.

Reviewer #2: The current study submitted to PLOS One aimed to investigate hyperarousal-related psychopathological mechanisms in sleep disturbances associated with alexithymia and negative affectivity, as well as the possible moderating role of interoceptive sensibility in a population-based sample. The study found that interoceptive sensibility tendency moderates the psychopathological mechanism of poor sleep quality. Further, the study concluded that the group differences in alexithymia and positive affect provided further insight into emotional processing based on previous theoretical considerations.

In general, the study gives a thorough scientific background on the subject and uses rigid subjective methods with many standardized scales (PSQI; TAS; MAIA; PANAS and more) to explore the relationship.

This study adds a small contribution to the existing literature on sleep and different emotional and behavior traits; however, a few points should be addressed before publication.

Abstract

The number of females participants is around 70% and instead of stating that in numbers in the methods section (abstract), it would be beneficial to the reader to see the percentage.

Introduction

The introduction gives a thorough review covering previous work on topics such as hyperarousal, emotions, alexithymia, interoceptive sensibility, and how they intertwine with sleep quality, insomnia, and overall sleep disturbances.

It struck me that just the introduction is roughly 2000 words (8 pages) and 80 references. Scientific papers usually tend to aim for 500–1000 words in the introduction and I highly recommend shortening the introduction (possibly move to methods, discussion, and cut down on the word count). Further, I would recommend limiting the excess number of references.

Materials and Methods

It would be of use to state where participants were recruited from? Was the online advertisement in a large city? University setting? Urban or rural area?

It would be beneficial to report what software the statistical analysis were run in and add the information to the Statistical Analysis section.

Results

In my opinion the lack of participants characteristic table is a problem. The authors jump straight into Partial Correlation of Measures (Table 1) but there is missing information regarding participants characteristics, score on the scales and possible some background information on the participants (age, height, social status) if that was collected in the study.

Further, a short description on the gender difference and how they performed on the test would also give the reader a better insight into the results. For example: did females report more alexithymia? Where there any gender differences regarding Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores?

Discussion

The reviewer would like a short sentence regarding the possible self-selection bias which is always a risk when studies use general population samples chosen via advertisement.

Further a discussion is needed regardingthe gender split of the participants. Females where 70% participants and previous research has shown that there is gender difference in both sleep behavior and mental aspect such as reporting of anxiety, alexithymia and depression.

Other comments

Line 63 – instead of saying “some studies” it can be written as other studies in order to prevent repetitiveness (from line 61 and line 65).

Line 343 – Recommend using effective instead of affective in the sentence: “somatic hyperarousal may be experienced as an affective way”

Line 371 – there is NA ., and than a large letter after the , that should to be fixed.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-21-13329R1Do Alexithymia and Negative Affect Predict Poor Sleep Quality? The Moderating Role of Interoceptive SensibilityPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yen,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 30 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Runtang Meng, Ph.D., M.M., M.B.B.S.

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr. Nai-Shing Yen,

I have received the external reviews of the manuscript ("Do Alexithymia and Negative Affect Predict Poor Sleep Quality? The Moderating Role of Interoceptive Sensibility") you submitted to PLoS One.

You will find the comments and suggestions of the reviewers below.

Based on the advice received and my own review, I have decided that your manuscript can be reconsidered for publication if you are prepared to incorporate minor revisions.

I ask that in preparing your revised manuscript you consider all comments carefully. Please check online for eventual reviewer attachments.

In submitting your revised manuscript, please include a cover letter giving specific details as to how you addressed each comment along with the page numbers where changes appear.

Reviewer 1

ID: PONE-D-21-13329

Title: Do Alexithymia and Negative Affect Predict Poor Sleep Quality? The Moderating Role of Interoceptive Sensibility.

I appreciate your efforts to improve the manuscript and to respond to the comments made in the first review process. However, there are still minor issues that need to be addressed.

Comment: minor revision.

Detailed information:

Abstract

This section is still too long, especially the "Objectives" part, please simplify it appropriately.

Materials and methods

Participants

Line 167, page 7, “The university is in a large city”: This means nothing to me and the readers. I suggest removing it.

Line 173 – 174, page 8: All number digits should be unified. Check other places too.

This section is not very fluent and seems like several different parts spliced together. I would suggest combining and trimming some of the sentences to make them easier to read.

Measurements

Line 185-186, page 8; line 199, page 9; line 239, page 11: The reliability of this study should be placed in the "Results" section.

Procedure

Line 250-253, page 11: "NTD" or "NTDs"? Please express it uniformly.

Results

Line 267 – 269, page 12: Please state vital results in the tables and change these two sentences with "(Table 1)" and "(Table 2)", which may make the expression clearer.

Line 270 – 271, page 12: Please standardize the number of decimals appearing in the whole text.

Table 1 – Table 4: 1) All scientifical tables should be formatted as three-line tables. 2) All abbreviations (e.g., "IS" in Table 1) appearing in the table should be written in full at the bottom note of the table.

Discussion

Line 371 – 389, pages 23 – 24: 1) "Limitations" discusses the shortcomings of the study itself, while "future directions" is not only to improve the shortcomings of the study but also to write about the aspects of in-depth research. Also, you should more clearly list the strengths of this study. Understanding the difference between the two, I believe you can write this section in a more logical way. I suggest dividing your opinions into “strengths and limitations” and “future directions” with subtitles and paragraphs. 2) The “conclusion” part of the study is missing.

This draft is a proper improvement, and I believe you have put a lot of effort into it. I hope you can make further revisions to increase the readability and standardization of the article.

Thank you and my best,

Your reviewer

Reviewer 2

All comments have been addressed.

Runtang Meng PhD

PLoS One, Guest Editor

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: ID: PONE-D-21-13329

Title: Do Alexithymia and Negative Affect Predict Poor Sleep Quality? The Moderating Role of Interoceptive Sensibility.

I appreciate your efforts to improve the manuscript and to respond to the comments made in the first review process. However, there are still minor issues that need to be addressed.

Comment: minor revision.

Detailed information:

Abstract

This section is still too long, especially the "Objectives" part, please simplify it appropriately.

Materials and methods

Participants

Line 167, page 7, “The university is in a large city”: This means nothing to me and the readers. I suggest removing it.

Line 173 – 174, page 8: All number digits should be unified. Check other places too.

This section is not very fluent and seems like several different parts spliced together. I would suggest combining and trimming some of the sentences to make them easier to read.

Measurements

Line 185-186, page 8; line 199, page 9; line 239, page 11: The reliability of this study should be placed in the "Results" section.

Procedure

Line 250-253, page 11: "NTD" or "NTDs"? Please express it uniformly.

Results

Line 267 – 269, page 12: Please state vital results in the tables and change these two sentences with "(Table 1)" and "(Table 2)", which may make the expression clearer.

Line 270 – 271, page 12: Please standardize the number of decimals appearing in the whole text.

Table 1 – Table 4: 1) All scientifical tables should be formatted as three-line tables. 2) All abbreviations (e.g., "IS" in Table 1) appearing in the table should be written in full at the bottom note of the table.

Discussion

Line 371 – 389, pages 23 – 24: 1) "Limitations" discusses the shortcomings of the study itself, while "future directions" is not only to improve the shortcomings of the study but also to write about the aspects of in-depth research. Also, you should more clearly list the strengths of this study. Understanding the difference between the two, I believe you can write this section in a more logical way. I suggest dividing your opinions into “strengths and limitations” and “future directions” with subtitles and paragraphs. 2) The “conclusion” part of the study is missing.

This draft is a proper improvement, and I believe you have put a lot of effort into it. I hope you can make further revisions to increase the readability and standardization of the article.

Thank you and my best,

Your reviewer

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Do Alexithymia and Negative Affect Predict Poor Sleep Quality? The Moderating Role of Interoceptive Sensibility

PONE-D-21-13329R2

Dear Dr. Yen,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Runtang Meng, Ph.D., M.M., M.B.B.S.

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: