Sex Differences in Competition-Based Attentional Selection

Abstract

Recent studies on attentional selection demonstrate that women are more influenced by irrelevant spatial cues or distracters than men. Two possible sources can be assumed to determine this alteration in information processing. Women might suffer from deficient top-down control, which makes attentional filters less efficient. On the other hand, higher integration of information presented in close temporal relationship might mimic a deficit in spatial cueing tasks. The latter should be restricted to conditions in which contradicting information is processed. In the present study, participants had to detect changes in luminance and to ignore orientation changes of stimuli that were presented in the fast succession of two visual frames. Women committed more errors when luminance and orientation changes were presented simultaneously at distinct spatial locations (perceptual conflict) compared to men. In no other condition a difference in performance between women and men was observed. Also sensory components of the electroencephalogram showed no sex differences at all. Only posterior components related to intentional allocation of attention in conflict trials appear to be altered in women compared to men. An enhanced N2pc was evoked in women when the perceptual conflict was high. The data provide evidence that neither very early sensory processing nor the top-down control in general is deficient in women. Enhanced distractibility rather arises from a stronger integration of information, which might be due to enhanced interhemispheric information integration in women compared to men.