Sex differences in scanning faces: Does attention to the eyes explain female superiority in facial expression recognition?

Abstract

Previous meta-analyses support a female advantage in decoding non-verbal emotion (Hall, 1978(Hall, , 1984, yet the mechanisms underlying this advantage are not understood. The present study examined whether the female advantage is related to greater female attention to the eyes. Eyetracking techniques were used to measure attention to the eyes in 19 males and 20 females during a facial expression recognition task. Women were faster and more accurate in their expression recognition compared with men, and women looked more at the eyes than men. Positive relationships were observed between dwell time and number of fixations to the eyes and both accuracy of facial expression recognition and speed of facial expression recognition. These results support the hypothesis that the female advantage in facial expression recognition is related to greater female attention to the eyes.

Perception of children’s faces with unilateral coronal synostosis—an eye-tracking investigation

“…None had a medical background. Because of known sex differences in scanning faces, only female participants were investigated to reduce error variations [17]. The mean age of the participants was 21.2 years, with a standard deviation of 1.5 years.…”

Orienting to face expression during encoding improves men's recognition of own gender faces

“…Women excel at the recognition of emotional expression in faces (Hall et al, 2010), performing more accurately (Hampson, van Anders, & Mullin, 2006;Sasson et al, 2010;Thayer & Johnsen, 2000) and efficiently (Hampson et al, 2006;Vassallo, Cooper, & Douglas, 2009) than men, especially with subtle variations in facial expressions (Hoffmann, Kessler, Eppel, Rukavina, & Traue, 2010;Montagne, Kessels, Frigerio, de Haan, & Perrett, 2005). Furthermore, processing emotional expression involves particular attention to eyes (Beaudry, Roy-Charland, Perron, Cormier, & Tapp, 2014;Gupta & Srinivasan, 2009;Hall et al, 2010), and women are more likely to focus on these features (Everhart et al, 2001;Hall et al, 2010), paying more attention to eyes than males as early as infancy (Ashear & Snortum, 1971;R. Exline, Gray, & Schuette, 1965;R.…”

“…A recent meta-analysis by Herlitz and Lovén (2013) reported that women are better at recognizing faces (Hedges' g = .36), with the advantage seen primarily for female faces. Several explanations have been offered for women's advantage, such as their superior face perception (Megreya et al, 2011), greater self-reported social engagement (Sommer, Hildebrandt, Kunina-Habenicht, Schacht, & Wilhelm, 2013), increased encoding specificity of faces (Guillem & Mograss, 2005;Lovén, Herlitz, & Rehnman, 2011), and superior recognition or detection of facial expression (Hall et al, 2010). Women's face recognition may also benefit from better use of increased encoding time (McKelvie, 1981), higher circulating estradiol (Yonker et al, 2003) and own-gender faces (Herlitz & Lovén, 2013;Lewin & Herlitz, 2002;Lovén, Svärd, Ebner, Herlitz, & Fischer, 2014;Lovén et al, 2011;McKelvie, 1981;Megreya et al, 2011;Wolff, Kemter, Schweinberger, & Wiese, 2014;Wright & Sladden, 2003).…”

“…For instance, faces serve as retrieval cues for qualities of an individual that are relevant to social exchange (Nachson, 1995;Riggio, 1992). However, there are individual differences in face recognition speed and accuracy (Guillem & Mograss, 2005;Hall, Hutton, & Morgan, 2010;Herlitz & Rehnman, 2008;Herlitz & Yonker, 2002;Hofmann, Suvak, & Litz, 2006;Lewin & Herlitz, 2002;Lewin, Wolgers, & Herlitz, 2001;McBain, Norton, & Chen, 2009;Rehnman & Herlitz, 2007;Vuilleumier, George, Lister, Armony, & Driver, 2005), some of which have relatively serious consequences. Impaired episodic memory of faces is seen in disorders such as schizophrenia (Calkins, Gur, Ragland, & Gur, 2005;Silver et al, 2006), autism (Weigelt, Koldewyn, & Kanwisher, 2012), and prosopagnosia (Kress & Daum, 2003), and is part of a general episodic memory disorder in Alzheimer's disease (Hawley & Cherry, 2004;Plaza, López-Crespo, Antúnez, Fuentes, & Estévez, 2012).…”

Do Men Conform More Than Women in the Recognition and Labeling of Emotions?

“…Female superiority in this domain has been shown to be particularly true for facial expressions of negative emotions (Hampson et al, 2006). The possible explanation of this difference is that women focus more on eyes while men focus more on mouth when they observe a facial expression (Hall et al, 2010;Sullivan, Cambell, Hutton, & Ruffman, 2015). The greater number of visual fixations to the upper portion of faces correlates with better recognition of negative emotions (Wong, Cronin-Golomb, & Neargarder, 2005).…”