Sex differences of hemispheric lateralization for faces and Chinese characters in early perceptual processing

Sex Differences in Categorical Adaptation for Faces and Chinese Characters during Early Perceptual Processing

“…For the adaptor stimuli, the N170 amplitude elicited by expert stimuli was larger than that elicited by houses in both women and men. Furthermore, the N170 amplitude elicited by faces as adaptor stimuli was larger in the right hemisphere than in the left hemisphere in men, although it was similar in both hemispheres in women; these results are also consistent with those of previous studies (Proverbio et al, 2010 ; Ji et al, 2016 ). Together, our results and previous studies support that the N170 response during face processing is right hemisphere-dominant in men and bilateral in women; furthermore, this effect is stable across different tasks (for example, the one-back task and adaptation task).…”

“…The studies described above demonstrate that N170 categorical adaptation is consistent for facial and word processing when a short ISI occurs. Moreover, previous studies have demonstrated sex differences in N170 amplitudes for faces and words (Skrandies et al, 1999 ; Hill et al, 2006 ; Proverbio et al, 2006 , 2010 , 2012 ; Ji et al, 2016 ). However, sex differences in N170 categorical adaptation for both face and word processing have not been elucidated.…”

“…Sex differences in the neural response to objects of expertise have been investigated during early perception (Proverbio et al, 2006 , 2010 , 2012 ; Sun et al, 2010 ). For example, during early perceptual processing, research has consistently demonstrated a right-lateralized face-related N170 response in men, and a bilateral response in women (Proverbio et al, 2006 , 2010 , 2011 , 2012 ; Godard and Fiori, 2010 ; Godard et al, 2013 ; Ji et al, 2016 ). Only a few studies have used ERPs to investigate sex differences in word processing, although they have found evidence for differences between women and men (Skrandies et al, 1999 ; Hill et al, 2006 ; Ji et al, 2016 ; however, Wirth et al, 2007 ).…”

“…However, most previous studies have used ERPs to investigate sex differences in N170 responses to faces or words separately. A recent ERP study examined sex differences in the N170 response evoked by both faces and words (Ji et al, 2016 ), and found that the N170 response to faces in men was right-lateralized, whereas it was bilateral in women. Moreover, the N170 response to Chinese characters was bilateral in men, whereas it was left-lateralized in women.…”

Early processing (N170) of infant faces in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder and its association with maternal sensitivity

“…Several studies report that N170 lateralization to the right is the typical neural response when processing adult faces [Dawson et al, ; Luck, ; McPartland et al, ; Nguyen & Cunnington, ; Pegna, Khateb, Michel, & Landis, ; Rossion, Joyce, Cottrell, & Tarr, ] and infant faces [Brosch, Sander, & Scherer, ]. Nevertheless, some studies have not found this lateralization effect for infant faces in healthy controls, specifically mothers [Noll et al, ; Proverbio et al, ], or for adult faces in healthy females compared to males [Ji, Cao, & Xu, ; Godard, Leleu, Rebai, & Fiori, ; Proverbio, Riva, Martin, & Zani, ; Godard, ]. Thus, it remains an open question whether the typical response of women, and particularly mothers, is rather a lack of lateralization when presented with infant faces.…”