Are females more responsive to emotional stimuli? A neurophysiological study across arousal and valence dimensions

C. Lithari, C. A. Frantzidis, C. Papadelis, Ana B. Vivas, M. A. Klados, C. Kourtidou-Papadeli, C. Pappas, A. A. Ioannides, P. D. Bamidis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)27-40
Number of pages14
JournalBrain Topography
Volume23
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2010

Bibliographical note

©The Author(s) 2009. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Keywords

  • Emotions
  • Event related potentials
  • Gender differences
  • Skin conductance

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