title: Gender differences in visual reflexive attention shifting: evidence from an ERP study.
abstract: Attention is considered a central component of cognitive functioning. While many studies have demonstrated that eye direction can trigger reflexive attention shifting, there have been few studies on gender differences in attention shifting. To explore this issue we present results from an event-related potential (ERP) experiment using the spatial cueing task, in which females show larger ERP component amplitude. We suggest this result may be because women have a larger cueing effect in the visual spatial attention task, which leads women to use more attention resources to complete the task. The result may also be because women mature earlier than men in the major brain areas for visual spatial attention, and therefore women have the more mature activation patterns with enhanced amplitude in these regions. Gender differences in visual attention shifting may moderate or contribute to gender differences in other cognitive activities, such as memory, thought, and speech. Future studies of cognitive ability and cognitive processes should pay more attention to the possible effects of gender.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Lab of Applied Experimental Psychology, School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Yaqin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Xuemin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Yue-Jia
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Yingdi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Talhelm
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult