Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-04T20:43:43.618Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Gender differences in late positive components evoked by human faces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1999

JUAN C. OLIVER-RODRÍGUEZ
Affiliation:
Universidad Jaime I, Castellón, Spain
ZHIQIANG GUAN
Affiliation:
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, USA
VICTOR S. JOHNSTON
Affiliation:
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, USA
Get access

Abstract

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in male and female participants in response to 32 male and 32 female faces. Participants were instructed to simply look carefully at each face; after ERP collection they were asked to rate each face on a 5-point attractiveness scale. A positive correlation between average rating and average P300 scores to opposite sex faces was observed in male (r = .40) and in preovulatory (r = .41) and postovulatory (r = .44) female subjects. Correlations to same sex faces were only found in postovulatory females (r = .61). Male participants showed a much larger average P300 than did female participants, and the P300 evoked in female participants was unexpectedly larger to female than to male faces. Neither task relevance nor stimulus probability is a plausible explanations for these findings because they were experimentally controlled. These results support the emotional value hypothesis, according to which classical P300 processes reflect an affective evaluation of the stimulus, which in turn produces context updating.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
1999 Society for Psychophysiological Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)