Sex-Related Memory Recall and Talkativeness for Emotional Stimuli

Abstract

Recent studies have evidenced an increasing interest in sex-related brain mechanisms and cerebral lateralization subserving emotional memory, language processing, and conversational behavior. We used event-related-potentials (ERP) to examine the influence of sex and hemisphere on brain responses to emotional stimuli. Given that the P300 component of ERP is considered a cognitive neuroelectric phenomenon, we compared left and right hemisphere P300 responses to emotional stimuli in men and women. As indexed by both amplitude and latency measures, emotional stimuli elicited more robust P300 effects in the left hemisphere in women than in men, while a stronger P300 component was elicited in the right hemisphere in men compared to women. Our findings show that the variables of sex and hemisphere interacted significantly to influence the strength of the P300 component to the emotional stimuli. Emotional stimuli were also best recalled when given a long-term, incidental memory test, a fact potentially related to the differential P300 waves at encoding. Moreover, taking into account the sex-related differences in language processing and conversational behavior, in the present study we evaluated possible talkativeness differences between the two genders in the recollection of emotional stimuli. Our data showed that women used a higher number of words, compared to men, to describe both arousal and neutral stories. Moreover, the present results support the view that sex differences in lateralization may not be a general feature of language processing but may be related to the specific condition, such as the emotional content of stimuli.

A review on sex differences in processing emotional signals

“…A set of slides was accompanied by a simple narrative, either a neutral version or an arousing one. In addition to their previous ERP finding, they also found that men, not women, recalled the arousing story better than the neutral version (Arnone, Pompili, Tavares, & Gasbarri, 2011).…”

Frontal EEG Asymmetry of Mood: A Mini-Review

“…Indeed, different studies reviewed used only females (e.g., Tomarken et al, 1990 ; Wheeler et al, 1993 ; Gotlib et al, 1998 ; Reid et al, 1998 ; Gale et al, 2001 ), or much more females than males (e.g., Dennis and Solomon, 2010 ; Mikolajczak et al, 2010 ); one study enrolled only males (Jacobs and Snyder, 1996 ), and one study reported no information about gender (Warden-Smith et al, 2017 ). Only recently studies have increased the interest in gender-related brain mechanisms and cerebral lateralization subserving emotional processing (e.g., Gasbarri et al, 2006 , 2007 ; Arnone et al, 2011 ). In particular, unpleasant stimuli (negatively valenced IAPS pictures) were found to elicit higher P300 amplitude and shorter P300 latency at left frontal site than pleasant and neutral stimuli in women than in men, while a stronger P300 component was elicited in the right hemisphere in men compared to women (e.g., Gasbarri et al, 2007 ; Arnone et al, 2011 ).…”

“…Only recently studies have increased the interest in gender-related brain mechanisms and cerebral lateralization subserving emotional processing (e.g., Gasbarri et al, 2006 , 2007 ; Arnone et al, 2011 ). In particular, unpleasant stimuli (negatively valenced IAPS pictures) were found to elicit higher P300 amplitude and shorter P300 latency at left frontal site than pleasant and neutral stimuli in women than in men, while a stronger P300 component was elicited in the right hemisphere in men compared to women (e.g., Gasbarri et al, 2007 ; Arnone et al, 2011 ). In addition, participants' age might also be another confounding factor because different wide age ranges are reported across studies, even including over 50 (e.g., Jacobs and Snyder, 1996 ; Dennis and Solomon, 2010 ) or 60-year people (e.g., Hall and Petruzzello, 1999 ; Mathersul et al, 2008 ).…”

Electrophysiological and Behavioral Indices of the Role of Estrogens on Memory Processes for Emotional Faces in Healthy Young Women

“…The influence of emotion on memory has been abundantly demonstrated using various types of materials, including emotional stories (Gasbarri et al, 2005; Nielsen et al, 2013), pictures (Pompili et al, 2016), and words (Arnone et al, 2011). However, images of emotional faces differ from other arousing pictures or words because of their affective value (Calvo and Nummenmaa, 2016).…”