Are Females More Responsive to Emotional Stimuli? A Neurophysiological Study Across Arousal and Valence Dimensions

Abstract

Men and women seem to process emotions and react to them differently. Yet, few neurophysiological studies have systematically investigated gender differences in emotional processing. Here, we studied gender differences using Event Related Potentials (ERPs) and Skin Conductance Responses (SCR) recorded from participants who passively viewed emotional pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The arousal and valence dimension of the stimuli were manipulated orthogonally. The peak amplitude and peak latency of ERP components and SCR were analyzed separately, and the scalp topographies of significant ERP differences were documented. Females responded with enhanced negative components (N100 and N200), in comparison to males, especially to the unpleasant visual stimuli, whereas both genders responded faster to high arousing or unpleasant stimuli. Scalp topographies revealed more pronounced gender differences on central and left hemisphere areas. Our results suggest a difference in the way emotional stimuli are processed by genders: unpleasant and high arousing stimuli evoke greater ERP amplitudes in women relatively to men. It also seems that unpleasant or high arousing stimuli are temporally prioritized during visual processing by both genders.

Affective auditory stimuli: Adaptation of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-2) for European Portuguese

“…These findings support our hypothesis and show that, as in previous studies (e.g., Bradley, et al, 2001;Lithari et al, 2010;Schirmer et al, 2002Schirmer et al, , 2005Soares et al, 2012), Portuguese females tend to show higher emotional reactivity in response to affective sounds than do males.…”

“…In line with existing studies (e.g., Bradley, et al, 2001;Lithari et al, 2010;Schirmer et al, 2002Schirmer et al, , 2005, sex differences were more pronounced for the defensive system. The fact that Portuguese females revealed more emotional reactivity toward negative sounds than did males may be explained by a complex interaction between the underlying biological processes and social and cultural responses.…”

“…However, pleasant sounds (i.e., those that scored above 5 in valence), especially erotic sounds (e.g., 200, 201, 202, and 215), tended to be assessed as being more arousing by males than by females. These findings of a negativity bias in the way that EP females rated IADS-2 sounds and a tendency for a positivity bias in the way that EP males rated the same sounds confirmed for the IADS-2 Portuguese adaptation a pattern that has been found in previous studies (e.g., Bradley, et al, 2001;Gohier et al, in press;Lithari et al, 2010;Schirmer et al, 2002Schirmer et al, , 2005. For example, Bradley and Lang (2007b) found that, while 30% of females assessed IAPS unpleasant pictures as being more arousing (and only 15% assessed pleasant pictures as being more arousing), 40% of males assessed IAPS pleasant pictures as being more arousing (and only 15% assessed unpleasant pictures as being more arousing).…”

“…Studies on auditory affective processing have also demonstrated sex differences in response to sounds (e.g., Gohier et al, in press;Lewis, Wightman, Brefczynski, Phinney, Binder, & DeYoe, 2004;Schirmer, Striano, & Friederici, 2005), which had previously been observed for pictures (e.g., Bradley, et al, 2001;Bradley & Lang, 2007b;Lithari et al, 2010), showing a female advantage in decoding of the affective proprieties of stimuli. Some studies have pointed to the greater sensitivity of women to distinguish stimuli with negative valence, such as negative nonverbal human vocalizations (e.g., a scream; e.g., Gohier et al, in press).…”

Brain dynamics of upstream perceptual processes leading to visual object recognition: A high density ERP topographic mapping study

“…erotic scenes) nor highly unpleasant (i.e. mutilations), because such pictures could lead to specific emotion reactions which may be different between male and female participants (Lithari et al, 2010;Proverbio, Adorni, Zani, & Trestianu, 2009;Sabatinelli, Flaisch, Bradley, Fitzsimmons, & Lang, 2004). We also selected ten additional neutral pictures that were used during the practice session (see footnote) and were not included in the subsequent statistical analyses.…”