Gender differences in the cortical electrophysiological processing of visual emotional stimuli

Adaptation of the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) for European Portuguese

“…The larger quantity and complexity of the information conveyed by pictures relative to words or sounds may contribute to enhancing differences in the way Portuguese males and females affectively react to the IAPS stimuli. These differences are also in line with the findings of recent studies using both behavioral and psychophysiological measures of emotions (e.g., Bradley et al, 2001a;Kemp et al, 2004;Lithari et al, 2010;Yi et al, 2006;Wrase et al, 2003) and highlights differences in the processing of different types of affective stimuli (e.g., De Houwer & Hermans, 1994;Hinojosa et al, 2009). Therefore, the observed sex differences strongly recommend the use of male and/or female IAPS norms when conducting research on affective processing with EP participants.…”

“…Furthermore, increased frontal lobe activation to positive visual stimuli was found in men relative to women, while increased activation in the cingulate gyrus (anterior and medial) to negative visual stimuli was found in women relative to men (Wrase et al, 2003). Other studies pointed to electrophysiological differences in the processing of affective pictures, such as evinced by the increased amplitude of N100 and N200 components to negative visual stimuli in females relative to males (Lithari et al, 2010), and reduced latency of frontal steady-state visually evoked potentials related to the processing of negative visual stimuli in females but not in males (Kemp et al, 2004). Taken together, these findings suggest important behavioral and brain differences in the way men and women process emotional stimuli, which strongly recommends the analysis of sex effects on IAPS ratings.…”

“…Following our previous studies (Soares et al, 2012, we also explored sex differences in IAPS ratings by EP participants. The investigation of sex differences is encouraged by recent studies (e.g., Bradley, Codispoti, Sabatinelli, & Lang, 2001b;Hamann, Herman, Nolan, & Wallen, 2004;Karama et al, 2002;Kemp, Silberstein, Armstrong, & Nathan, 2004;Lithari et al, 2010;Pessoa, 2009;Wrase et al, 2003) and by our previous work demonstrating differences in how male and female participants rate affective words (Soares et al, 2012) and sounds . For example, recent studies show that women tend to respond with greater defensive reactivity to negative visual stimuli (i.e., with higher psychological and physiological activation), while men tend to respond with greater appetitive reactivity to positive stimuli, particularly to erotic stimuli (Bradley et al, 2001b).…”

Impact of acute administration of escitalopram on the processing of emotional and neutral images: a randomized crossover fMRI study of healthy women

“…Though we did not find differential impacts of hormonal or menstrual status on BOLD activation during emotion processing under each treatment condition (see the Appendix), our findings may not be generalizable to men. As men have different patterns of neurophysiological responses to affective stimuli 64 that are further differentiated by the valence of the stimuli, 65 it is imperative to extend our findings to men in future studies, as drug effects may differ. Nevertheless, the within-subjects design and extensive manipulation checks, along with the use of a homogeneous, well-characterized sample, increase our confidence in the observed findings.…”

Affective auditory stimuli: Characterization of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) by discrete emotional categories

“…Nevertheless, a complete lack of sex differences for any of the individual sounds was quite surprising, as numerous psychophysiological studies have commonly shown sex differences to emotional stimuli using various methods, including fMRI (e.g., Wrase et al, 2003), EEG (e.g., Schirmer, Kotz, & Friederici, 2005), steady-state probe topography (e.g., Kemp, Silberstein, Armstrong, & Nathan, 2004), and more peripheral measures such as heart rate, facial EMG, skin conductance, and startle effect (e.g., Bradley, Codispoti, Sabatinelli, & Lang, 2001). However, because this current data is only of a descriptive nature, any attempt to theorize why there is a lack of sex differences in the LADS where there were slight differences in the IAPS and the ANEW would be complete speculation.…”