Sex differences and eye movements.

Abstract

This study was designed to examine sex differences in eye movements. Recordings were made from 28 right-handed students (15 males and 13 females). Both the number and direction of eye movements elicited during a 10-second time interval following questions presumed to elicit spatial or verbal processing and which had neutral or affective content were recorded. The results showed that (1) global oculomotor activity was significantly higher for females than for males; (2) verbal questions elicited significantly more responses than spatial ones and emotionally charged questions more movements than neutral ones; (3) the proportion of movements to the right was higher than that to the left for females, whereas the reverse was observed in males, and (4) whatever the nature of the question, females tended to look right whereas males tended to look left. Despite some divergent results concerning the presumed power of questions to elicit right or left hemisphere activity, it seems that lateral eye movements show a coherent pattern provided that sex differences are taken into account.