Examination of sex differences in bottom-up auditory attention according to human behavioral judgments of the auditory saliency model

Abstract

Many cognitive functions are related to sex. However, the relationship between auditory attention and sex remains unknown. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess sex differences in auditory saliency judgments according to bottom-up auditory attention. Forty-five normal adults (mean age: 21.5 ± 0.64 years) without hearing, intelligence, and attention deficits were enrolled. They listened to five audio stimuli played by a loudspeaker in a soundproof room and then annotated the attention-capturing sounds. Each stimulus contained 10 salient sounds (foreground tokens) randomly placed within a 1-minute natural soundscape (background token). Responses were confirmed for 77 sound events, with individual response rates of 4–100%. The overall and foreground token response rates were lower in females than in males (p < 0.01), but the background token response rate was higher in females (p < 0.001). In multiple regression analysis, only loudness influenced female response rates (p = 0.002); thus, females may be more influenced by loudness when making saliency judgments than males. This study is the first to report sex differences in auditory saliency judgments according to bottom-up auditory attention. In conclusion, sex differences should be considered when assessing bottom-up auditory attention.