Lithari, C., Frantzidis, C.A., Papadelis, C. et al. (6 more authors) (2010) Are females more responsive to emotional stimuli? A neurophysiological study across arousal and valence dimensions. Brain Topography, 23 (1). pp. 27-40. ISSN 0896-0267
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2009. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. |
Keywords: | Adult; Brain; Electroencephalography; Emotions; Evoked Potentials; Female; Galvanic Skin Response; Humans; Male; Photic Stimulation; Sex Characteristics; Time Factors; Visual Perception |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 22 Nov 2019 15:23 |
Last Modified: | 22 Nov 2019 19:31 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s10548-009-0130-5 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:152258 |