Gender Differences in Visuospatial Working Memory —Does Emotion Matter?

Andrés A González-Garrido,Adriana L López-Franco,Henrique Sequeira,Julieta Ramos-Loyo,Fabiola R Gómez-Velázquez

doi:10.5539/ijps.v5n1p11

Abstract

Sex-based differences in visuospatial working memory (VSWM) processing have been documented previously.However, there is a significant lack of empirical data on the gender-related effects on both cognitive load, andthe emotional content of spatially-remembered objects in VSWM. In order to explore this issue, 50 young adults(25 males) voluntarily participated in performing a VSWM task with two different levels of cognitive load.Trials included 4 or 6 facial (happy, fearful and neutral faces), or non-facial, stimuli, presented sequentially atrandomized spatial locations, and subjects were asked to reproduce the sequences in inverse order. Behavioralresults showed that both males and females performed more accurately and faster when the sequences to bereproduced were shorter. In general, males performed significantly better than females, but particularly whenreproducing longer sequences. Males and females were sensitive to the emotional content of the stimuli, as bothgenders achieved significantly more correct responses during trials with happy faces. Results suggest thatgender-based differences on VSWM processing go beyond discriminating processes, and may involvedissimilarities in cognitive strategies, and/or underlying neural substrates.

Highlights

As part of everyday social interaction, subjects must recognize faces in the environment, and identify their emotional expressions and the spatial location in which they are seen, as this ability represents an adaptive advantage in terms of predicting future actions and adjusting one’s behavior
The analysis showed that the number of correct responses was significantly higher in males than in females (F1,48=5.807, p
The statistical analyses demonstrated that, regardless of the type of stimuli, the number of correct responses was higher for the shorter sequences (F1,48=232.3, p

Summary

Introduction

As part of everyday social interaction, subjects must recognize faces in the environment, and identify their emotional expressions and the spatial location in which they are seen, as this ability represents an adaptive advantage in terms of predicting future actions and adjusting one’s behavior . There is sufficiently empirical evidence in this field to allow us to affirm that emotional faces are identified more accurately and quickly than other changing objects (Jenkins, Lavie, & Driver, 2005; Reinders, den Boer & Büchel, 2005; Ro, Russell, & Lavie, 2001). A facial one, is processed, several mechanisms converge to distinguish and contextualize it. It is possible that the appearance of an emotional stimulus might interfere with the processing of other stimuli that appear in the temporal vicinity, basically due to the fact that stimuli with emotional content attract greater attentional resources because of their adaptive significance (Ledoux, 1996; Vuilleumier, Armony, Driver, & Dolan, 2001).

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Results

Conclusion