Hearing: Individual Differences in Perceiving

McGuinness, Diane

doi:10.1068/p010465

Cited by 54 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Women's thresholds were generally about 2 dB lower than men's at lower frequencies and about 10 dB lower between 4 and 8 kHz. Sizable differences have also been found by McGuinness (1972).…”

Section: Gender Differences In Pain Responsivenesssupporting

confidence: 48%

The detectability, discriminability, and perceived magnitude of painful electrical shock

Rollman

Harris

1987

Perception & Psychophysics

109

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Thresholds for sensation, pain, and tolerance were obtained from 20 male and 20 female observers who received trains of electrical pulses applied to the volar forearm. Also determined were estimates of sensory magnitude for a series of stimuli that spanned the pain sensitivity range (PSR) between pain threshold and tolerance, as well as Weber fractions for the discrimination of stimuli at the midpoint of the PSR. There were great individual differences in all dependent variables. Females had significantly lower values for all thresholds but did not differ from males in the growth of sensory magnitude or in discriminatory capacity. Power functions, with a median exponent of 1.74 and a mean of 2.39, fit the scaling data well. The results are analyzed for a suggested negative correlation between exponent and stimulus range. The presence of such an effect indicates that electrocutaneous stimulation provides a powerful technique for the analysis of individual differences and the evaluation of psychophysical theories.Electrical stimulation of the skin provides a useful induction method for laboratory studies of pain (Procacci, Della Corte, et al., 1974;Rollman, 1983a; Smith & Andrew, 1970): it is readily graded in intensity, can be turned on and off instantaneously, and produces no lasting physical damage.Past research has typically demonstrated that the subjective magnitudes of the sensations produced by electrical pulses can be related to their current or voltage by a power function with an exponent greater than unity, indicating that the perceived intensity grows at a rate faster than the physical one. The reported value of the exponent of the power function has varied considerably, from near 1.0 to beyond 3.0 (e.g., Algom, Raphaeli, & Cohen- Raz, 1986; Babkoff, 1976 Babkoff, , 1978 Beck & Rosner, 1968;Bevan, 1966;Bromm & Treede, 1980; Bujas, Szabo, Kovacic, & Rohacek, 1975; Ekman, Frankenhaeuser, Levander, & Mellis, 1964Hawkes, 1960; McCallum & Goldberg, 1975;Sachs, Miller, & Grant, 1980;Sternbach & Tursky, 1964;Stevens, Carton, & Shickman, 1958;Tashiro & Higashiyama, 1981). These differences can be ascribed, in part, to the effects of stimulus parameters and correction of the power function for threshold (Rollman, 1974), to the nature and scaling of the physical stimulus (Myers, 1982), to the painfulness of the presentations (Jones, 1980), and to regression and range effects (Cross, Tursky, & Lodge, 1975).Although electrical shocks can be painful, most of the studies cited above determined power functions at levels that were weak enough for the sensation to be described as being tactile rather than nociceptive. Although there This research was supported by Grant AO-392 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the senior author. Requests for reprints should be sent to Gary B. Rollman, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada.have been attempts to obtain psychophysical functions for intense stimuli in several modalities (e.g

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Section: Gender Differences In Pain Responsivenesssupporting

confidence: 48%

The detectability, discriminability, and perceived magnitude of painful electrical shock

Rollman

Harris

1987

Perception & Psychophysics

109

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“…This pattern of results suggests that individual differences in mental ability and musical background, if not controlled for, may produce a confounding effect that could mask a potential effect of sex on pitch discrimination. This may be a possible reason why McGuinness (1972) failed to observe sex-related individual difference in pitch discrimination. Although McGuinness (1972) found that years of musical training was reliably related to better pitch discrimination, she did not statistically control for the influence of musical background on pitch discrimination.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…This may be a possible reason why McGuinness (1972) failed to observe sex-related individual difference in pitch discrimination. Although McGuinness (1972) found that years of musical training was reliably related to better pitch discrimination, she did not statistically control for the influence of musical background on pitch discrimination. Moreover, she did not measure psychometric intelligence to control for its influence on sexrelated differences in pitch discrimination.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…Therefore, he assumed that higher levels of musical education in women compared to men accounted for this female superiority. On the other hand, Shuter (1968) reported slightly superior performance on pitch discrimination for men compared to women, while men and women did not appear to be very different in the frequently cited study by McGuinness (1972). In this latter study, however, musical training in terms of years spent on any instrument was reliably related to better pitch discrimination.…”

Section: Pitch Discriminationmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Mountcastle, 1975). If, in fact, men and women differ in their basic sensory experience, it is conceivable that such differences may be involved in the establishment of more complex sex-typed behaviors beyond sensory information processing (Baker, 1987;McGuinness, 1972;Velle, 1987). Given these considerations, investigating sex-related differences in sensory functions may represent a worthwhile endeavor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

See 2 more Smart Citations

On Sex-Related Differences in Auditory and Visual Sensory Functioning

Rammsayer

Troche

2011

Arch Sex Behav

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The present study was designed to elucidate sex-related differences in two basic auditory and one basic visual aspect of sensory functioning, namely sensory discrimination of pitch, loudness, and brightness. Although these three aspects of sensory functioning are of vital importance in everyday life, little is known about whether men and women differ from each other in these sensory functions. Participants were 100 male and 100 female volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 30 years. Since sensory sensitivity may be positively related to individual levels of intelligence and musical experience, measures of psychometric intelligence and musical background were also obtained. Reliably better performance for men compared to women was found for pitch and loudness, but not for brightness discrimination. Furthermore, performance on loudness discrimination was positively related to psychometric intelligence, while pitch discrimination was positively related to both psychometric intelligence and levels of musical training. Additional regression analyses revealed that each of three predictor variables (sex, psychometric intelligence, and musical training) accounted for a statistically significant portion of unique variance in pitch discrimination. With regard to loudness discrimination, regression analysis yielded a statistically significant portion of unique variance for sex as a predictor variable, whereas psychometric intelligence just failed to reach statistical significance. The potential influence of sex hormones on sex-related differences in sensory functions is discussed.

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Biological Bases of Sex Differences

Low¹

2003

Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender

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Hearing: Individual Differences in Perceiving

Cited by 54 publications

References 12 publications

The detectability, discriminability, and perceived magnitude of painful electrical shock

The detectability, discriminability, and perceived magnitude of painful electrical shock

On Sex-Related Differences in Auditory and Visual Sensory Functioning

Biological Bases of Sex Differences

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