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Sex-related differences in event-related potentials, face recognition, and facial affect processing in prepubertal children

  • SUNY Buffalo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

74 Scopus citations

Abstract

Thirty-five prepubertal children, 17 boys and 18 girls, between the ages of 8 and 11 years, were studied to examine electrophysiological and cognitive sex differences during a face-recognition-memory (FRM) task and a facial-affect-identification task (FAIT). All participants were prepubertal, as determined by J. M. Tanner's (1962) staging and endocrine evaluation. Sex-dependent event-related potential (ERP) amplitude asymmetries were found during FRM. Boys displayed greater right versus left ERP amplitude to auditory tone probes during the task, whereas girls displayed the opposite pattern. In addition, positive correlations were obtained between ERP amplitude during FRM and FAIT accuracy scores for boys, but not for girls. Results suggest that girls and boys may use different neuronal systems in the processing of faces and facial affect. Findings are consistent with developmental theories regarding sex differences in visuospatial processing.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)329-341
Number of pages13
JournalNeuropsychology
Volume15
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2001

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