title: Cerebral activity to opposite-sex voices reflected by event-related potentials.
abstract: Human voice is a gender discriminating cue and is important to mate selection. This study employed electrophysiological recordings to examine whether there is specific cerebral activity when presented with opposite-sex voices as compared to same-sex voices. Male voices and female voices were pseudo-randomly presented to male and female participants. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to determine the gender of each voice. A late positivity (LP) response around 750 ms after voice onset was elicited by opposite-sex voices, as reflected by a positive deflection of the ERP to opposite-sex voices than that to same-sex voices. This LP response was prominent around parieto-occipital recording sites, and it suggests an opposite-sex specific process, which may reflect emotion- and/or reward-related cerebral activity. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to press a key when hearing a non-voice pure tone and not give any response when they heard voice stimuli. In this task, no difference were found between the ERP to same-sex voices and that to opposite-sex voices, suggesting that the cerebral activity to opposite-sex voices may disappear without gender-related attention. These results provide significant implications on cognitive mechanisms with regard to opposite-sex specific voice processing.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Ya
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Xiliang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Lizhuang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Lijun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Zhengde
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Rujing
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zha
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China; Department of Medical Psychology, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Yifeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China; School of Humanities & Social Science, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Xiaochu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D014831:Voice; D055815:Young Adult
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