Gender difference in N170 elicited under oddball task

Journal of Physiological Anthropology

Shigeki Watanuki¹  Takayuki Nishimura³  Midori Motoi²  Jun’ya Takakura²  Yuka Egashira²  Damee Choi² 

[1] Faculty of Design, Kyushu University, 4-9-1 Shiobaru, Minami-ku, Fukuoka 815-8540, Japan;Department of Kansei Science, Kyushu University, 4-9-1 Shiobaru, Minami-ku, Fukuoka 815-8540, Japan;Department of Public Health, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, Nagasaki, Japan

关键词: Oddball task;    Face;    Attention;    Event-related potential;    N170;    Gender difference;   

Others  :  1145353
DOI  :  10.1186/s40101-015-0045-7

 received in 2014-10-06, accepted in 2015-01-22,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Some studies have reported gender differences in N170, a face-selective event-related potential (ERP) component. This study investigated gender differences in N170 elicited under oddball paradigm in order to clarify the effect of task demand on gender differences in early facial processing.

Findings

Twelve males and 10 females discriminated targets (emotional faces) from non-targets (emotionally neutral faces) under an oddball paradigm, pressing a button as quickly as possible in response to the target. Clear N170 was elicited in response to target and non-target stimuli in both males and females. However, females showed more negative amplitude of N170 in response to target compared with non-target, while males did not show different N170 responses between target and non-target.

Conclusions

The present results suggest that females have a characteristic of allocating attention at an early stage when responding to faces actively (target) compared to viewing faces passively (non-target). This supports previous findings suggesting that task demand is an important factor in gender differences in N170.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Choi et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]McClure EB: A meta-analytic review of sex differences in facial expression processing and their development in infants, children, and adolescents. Psychol Bull. 2000, 126:424-53.
• [2]Hall JA: Gender effects in decoding nonverbal cues. Psychol Bull. 1978, 85:845-57.
• [3]Montagne B, Kessels RP, Frigerio E, de Haan EH, Perrett DI: Sex differences in the perception of affective facial expressions: do men really lack emotional sensitivity? Cogn Process. 2005, 6:136-41.
• [4]Sun Y, Gao X, Han S: Sex differences in face gender recognition: an event-related potential study. Brain Res. 2010, 1327:69-76.
• [5]Proverbio AM, Brignone V, Matarazzo S, Del Zotto M, Zani A: Gender differences in hemispheric asymmetry for face processing. BMC Neurosci. 2006, 7:44. BioMed Central Full Text
• [6]Proverbio AM, Riva F, Martin E, Zani A: Face coding is bilateral in the female brain. PLoS One. 2010, 5:e11242.
• [7]Proverbio AM, Brignone V, Matarazzo S, Del Zotto M, Zani A: Gender and parental status affect the visual cortical response to infant facial expression. Neuropsychologia. 2006, 44:2987-99.
• [8]Proverbio AM, Mazzara R, Riva F, Manfredi M: Sex differences in callosal transfer and hemispheric specialization for face coding. Neuropsychologia. 2012, 50:2325-32.
• [9]Wang J, Kitayama S, Han S: Sex difference in the processing of task-relevant and task-irrelevant social information: an event-related potential study of familiar face recognition. Brain Res. 2011, 1408:41-51.
• [10]Campanella S, Rossignol M, Mejias S, Joassin F, Maurage P, Debatisse D, et al.: Human gender differences in an emotional visual oddball task: an event-related potentials study. Neurosci Lett. 2004, 367:14-8.
• [11]Guillem F, Mograss M: Gender differences in memory processing: evidence from event-related potentials to faces. Brain Cogn. 2005, 57:84-92.
• [12]Orozco S, Ehlers CL: Gender differences in electrophysiological responses to facial stimuli. Biol Psychiatry. 1998, 44:281-9.
• [13]Schulte-Rüther M, Markowitsch HJ, Shah NJ, Fink GR, Piefke M: Gender differences in brain networks supporting empathy. Neuroimage. 2008, 42:393-403.
• [14]Lee TM, Liu HL, Hoosain R, Liao WT, Wu CT, Yuen KS, et al.: Gender differences in neural correlates of recognition of happy and sad faces in humans assessed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Neurosci Lett. 2002, 333:13-6.
• [15]Schneider F, Habel U, Kessler C, Salloum JB, Posse S: Gender differences in regional cerebral activity during sadness. Hum Brain Mapp. 2000, 9:226-38.
• [16]Killgore WD, Yurgelun-Todd DA: Sex differences in amygdala activation during the perception of facial affect. Neuroreport. 2001, 12:2543-7.
• [17]Wood W, Eagly AH: A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychol Bull. 2002, 128:699-727.
• [18]Bentin S, Allison T, Puce A, Perez E, McCarthy G: Electrophysiological studies of face perception in humans. J Cogn Neurosci. 1996, 8:551-65.
• [19]Campanella S, Hanoteau C, Dépy D, Rossion B, Bruyer R, Crommelinck M, et al.: Right N170 modulation in a face discrimination task: an account for categorical perception of familiar faces. Psychophysiology. 2000, 37:796-806.
• [20]Eimer M, Holmes A: An ERP study on the time course of emotional face processing. Neuroreport. 2002, 13:427-31.
• [21]Holmes A, Vuilleumier P, Eimer M: The processing of emotional facial expression is gated by spatial attention: evidence from event-related brain potentials. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2003, 16:174-84.
• [22]Taylor MJ, McCarthy G, Saliba E, Degiovanni E: ERP evidence of developmental changes in processing of faces. Clin Neurophysiol. 1999, 110:910-5.
• [23]Choi D, Nishimura T, Motoi M, Egashira Y, Matsumoto R, Watanuki S: Effect of empathy trait on attention to various facial expressions: evidence from N170 and late positive potential (LPP). J Physiol Anthropol. 2014, 33:18. BioMed Central Full Text
• [24]Lundqvist D, Flykt A, Ohman A: The Karolinska directed emotional faces - KDEF(CD ROM). Stockholm, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Psychology section, KarolinskaInstitutet; 2011.