Gender Differences In Processing Research Articles

Due Process and Seclusion in Argentina: From Words to Facts

This study examines gender differences in the criminal justice processing of defendants in Argentina. The Argentinian charter of rights guarantees a number of criminal procedure rights for individuals accused of crimes. Using the results of a 2013 survey of inmates held in Argentinian federal prisons and prisons from the Buenos Aires Prison Service, gender differences in the processing of defendants was found. Women’s treatment may be the result of paternalism or a product of a double-sanction imposed on women who violate traditional gender roles.

Reasoning strategies modulate gender differences in emotion processing

The dual strategy model of reasoning has proposed that people’s reasoning can be understood asa combination of two different ways of processing information related to problem premises: a counterexample strategy that examines information for explicit potential counterexamples and a statistical strategy that uses associative access to generate a likelihood estimate of putative conclusions. Previous studies have examined this model in the context of basic conditional reasoning tasks. However, the information processing distinction that underlies the dual strategy model can be seen asa basic description of differences in reasoning (similar to that described by many general dual process models of reasoning). In two studies, we examine how these differences in reasoning strategy may relate to processing very different information, specifically we focus on previously observed gender differences in processing negative emotions. Study 1 examined the intensity of emotional reactions to a film clip inducing primarily negative emotions. Study 2 examined the speed at which participants determine the emotional valence of sequences of negative images. In both studies, no gender differences were observed among participants using a counterexample strategy. Among participants using a statistical strategy, females produce significantly stronger emotional reactions than males (in Study 1) and were faster to recognize the valence of negative images than were males (in Study 2). Results show that the processing distinction underlying the dual strategy model of reasoning generalizes to the processing of emotions.

Time course of attentional bias in anxiety: emotion and gender specificity.

Anxiety is characterized by cognitive biases, including attentional bias to emotional (especially threatening) stimuli. Accounts differ on the time course of attention to threat, but the literature generally confounds emotional valence and arousal and overlooks gender effects, both addressed in the present study. Nonpatients high in self-reported anxious apprehension, anxious arousal, or neither completed an emotion-word Stroop task during event-related potential (ERP) recording. Hypotheses differentiated time course of preferential attention to emotional stimuli. Individuals high in anxious apprehension and anxious arousal showed distinct early ERP evidence of preferential processing of emotionally arousing stimuli along with some evidence for gender differences in processing. Healthy controls showed gender differences at both early and later processing stages. The conjunction of valence, arousal, and gender is critical in the time course of attentional bias.

Gender differences in the cortical electrophysiological processing of visual emotional stimuli

The processing of visual emotional stimuli has been investigated previously; however, gender differences in the processing of emotional stimuli remain to be clarified. The aim of the current study was to use steady-state probe topography (SSPT) to examine steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) during the processing of pleasant and unpleasant images relative to neutral images, and to determine whether this processing differs between males and females. Thirty participants (15 males and 15 females) viewed 75 images low on the arousal dimension (categorised as pleasant, neutral or unpleasant) selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), whilst a 13-Hz sinusoidal white visual flicker was superimposed over the visual field and brain electrical activity was recorded from 64 electrode sites. Results suggest that pleasant and unpleasant images relative to neutral images are associated with reductions in frontal latency and occipital amplitude. In addition, electrophysiological gender differences were observed despite there being no differences found between males and females on subjective mood or behavioural ratings of presented images (valence and arousal dimensions). The main gender difference reported in the current study related to the processing of unpleasant images (relative to neutral images) which is associated with widespread frontal latency reductions (predominantly right sided) in females but not in males. Our results suggest that gender differences do exist in the processing of visual emotional stimuli, and illustrate the importance of taking these differences into account during investigations of emotional processing. Finally, these gender differences may have implications for the pathophysiology of mood disorders such as depression.

Exploring Differences in Males' and Females' Processing Strategies

Existing research suggests that, relative to males, females often are more concerned with the particulars of message claims when processing advertising messages. This research examines how males process messages, when gender differences in processing are likely to occur, and whether variance in either information availability (the extent of message encoding) or information accessibility (the richness of message encoding) is likely to mediate such differences. The findings suggest that whether gender differences in processing occur depends on the nature of the response task and the level of cue incongruity contained in the message. Differences in the accessibility of message cues and in the genders' likelihood of using alternative processing strategies seem likely to account for these findings.