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To cite this article: Lena Lambrecht, Benjamin Kreifelts & Dirk Wildgruber (2014) Gender differences
in emotion recognition: Impact of sensory modality and emotional category, Cognition & Emotion, 28:3,
452-469, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2013.837378
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.837378
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COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014
Vol. 28, No. 3, 452–469, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.837378
Results from studies on gender differences in emotion recognition vary, depending on the types of
emotion and the sensory modalities used for stimulus presentation. This makes comparability between
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different studies problematic. This study investigated emotion recognition of healthy participants
(N = 84; 40 males; ages 20 to 70 years), using dynamic stimuli, displayed by two genders in three
different sensory modalities (auditory, visual, audio-visual) and five emotional categories. The
participants were asked to categorise the stimuli on the basis of their nonverbal emotional content
(happy, alluring, neutral, angry, and disgusted). Hit rates and category selection biases were analysed.
Women were found to be more accurate in recognition of emotional prosody. This effect was partially
mediated by hearing loss for the frequency of 8,000 Hz. Moreover, there was a gender-specific
selection bias for alluring stimuli: Men, as compared to women, chose “alluring” more often when a
stimulus was presented by a woman as compared to a man.
Nonverbal communication (e.g., facial expressions, information. With respect to decoding nonverbal
speech melody—prosody—or gestures) forms an emotional information women outperformed men
important basis of human social relationships, based on drawings, photos or films of faces, hands,
because they convey our social counterpart’s inten- arms, legs, and feet, as well as speech (Hall, 1978).
tions and emotions. Failure to correctly interpret However, one has to bear in mind that only “less
such nonverbal signals impedes successful social than 4% of the variance in decoding scores is
interaction and may cause irritation and aggression. accounted for by gender” (Hall, 1978). Two further
In the context of nonverbal communication the reviews (Hall, 1984; McClure, 2000) confirmed
observer’s gender has repeatedly been proposed as the female advantage in emotion recognition when
a factor with impact on processing emotional investigating infants, children and adolescents.
Correspondence should be addressed to: Lena Lambrecht, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen,
Osianderstrasse 24, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany. E-mail: lenalambrecht@hotmail.de
Supplementary material can be accessed.
This work was supported by a grants of the Fortüne-Program of the University of Tübingen (fortüne 1997-0-0).
Subsequent studies investigating gender differ- Multimodal stimuli. Comparing auditory and
ences in emotion recognition have mostly focused visual sensory modalities as well as audio-visual
on either prosody or facial expressions. However, stimulation, the most pronounced gender effect
they differed in the type of emotions they occurs for audio-visually presented emotions
included. Thus, results of different modalities are (Collignon et al., 2010; Hall, 1978). With regard
difficult to compare. In order to overcome this to multimodal emotion recognition, a female
problem and to increase comparability of emotion advantage (ηp2 = .009) was observed based on
recognition performance across sensory modalities judgements of black and white photographs of
and emotional categories, we designed a study facial expressions and voice recordings (Scherer &
with different sensory modalities and several Scherer, 2011). However, in the major validation
emotional categories and investigated the influ- study the proportion of male and female partici-
ence of gender of the participant and gender of the pants was not balanced with 25% female partici-
model on emotion recognition pants. Thus, comparability between men and
women in emotion recognition is limited. Another
multimodal test (Rosenthal, Hall, DiMatteo,
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at the behavioural level (arousal ratings), as well as recognised than disgust (Williams et al., 2009).
haemodynamic responses within voice sensitive Regarding emotional prosody, Castro and Lima
brain areas (right middle superior temporal gyrus), (2010) observed that neutral prosody is recognised
to an alluring tone of voice from the opposite best, followed by angry, happy and disgusted
gender. Notably, this effect was confined to prosody. Thus, differences in recognition perform-
alluring stimuli and no cross-gender interaction ance of specific emotional categories seem to
was observed during the perception of neutral, depend upon the sensory modality through which
happy, angry, or fearful prosody. the emotional signals are perceived. The recently
developed Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test
(MERT; Bänziger, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2009)
Emotion recognition performance as a investigated the recognition of dynamic, black and
function of modality and emotional category white expressions of ten emotions (hot anger, cold
Previous studies have indicated that sensory mod- anger, panic fear, anxiety, despair, sadness, elation,
ality, through which emotional information is happiness, disgust, contempt), which were pre-
perceived, and multisensory integration of emo- sented in four modalities (audio, video, audio/
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tional information strongly impact emotion recog- video, still picture). The authors found a signific-
nition performance. Kreifelts, Ethofer, Grodd, ant interaction between modality and emotional
Erb, and Wildgruber (2007) demonstrated that category, where disgust and elation were notably
emotional facial expressions are recognised with better recognised by face than from voice. Fur-
higher accuracy than emotional prosody. Hawk, thermore, authors described that cold as well as
van Kleef, Fischer, and van der Schalk (2009) hot anger were recognised better from dynamic
compared the accuracy of emotion recognition of video clips compared to still pictures.
non-linguistic affective vocalisations, speech-
embedded vocal prosody and facial cues and found
lowest scores for speech-embedded vocal prosody The present study
and equivalent scores for the other channels.
In order to investigate gender differences in
Integration of auditory and visually presented
recognition performance across different sensory
nonverbal emotional information facilitates emo-
modalities and across a range of emotions, three
tion recognition, resulting in higher accuracy and
modal conditions (unimodal auditory, unimodal
faster response times for the recognition of audio- visual and bimodal audio-visual), and five emotion
visual stimuli as compared to visual or auditory
categories (happy, alluring, angry, disgusted and
stimuli alone (Collignon et al., 2010; de Gelder &
neutral) were included. Additionally, we investi-
Vroomen, 2000; Ethofer et al., 2006; Kreifelts
gated the influence of gender of the display and
et al., 2007). Kreifelts et al. (2007) could demon-
the interaction with the gender of the participant.
strate that integration of auditory and visual emo-
We included three different performance mea-
tional information was accompanied by an
sures. The raw hit rate was applied as a measure of
enhanced activation in the bilateral posterior super-
the correct responses. Second, we investigated the
ior temporal gyrus (pSTG) and right thalamus.
choice of the emotional category irrespective of
Emotion recognition performance varies across
whether it is correct or incorrect, to evaluate
discrete emotion categories. With regard to facial
selection biases. Thirdly, we used the unbiased
expressions happiness is the best recognised emo-
hit rate which measures the correct responses, but
tion among the basic emotions (Kirouac & Doré,
accounts for false alarms.
1985; Montagne, Kessels, De Haan, & Perrett,
We hypothesised that:
2007; Ruffman, Henry, Livingstone, & Phillips,
2008; Williams et al., 2009). Neutral expressions 1. Females show higher emotion recognition
seem to be better recognised than anger and rates than males, for every modal condition
disgust whereas anger, in turn, seems to be better with greatest gender differences in the
audio-visual modality (Collignon et al., Additionally, mean hearing loss was calculated
2010; Hall, 1978). across all tested frequencies. The average duration
2. Females exhibit higher emotion recogni- of education was 18.0 years (SD = 4.8 years).
tion rates than males for every emotional Verbal intelligence ranged from 93 to 145 (mean
category, independent of the gender of the verbal intelligence 124.2, S.D. 13.9) as assessed by
model. the “Mehrfach-Wortschatz-Intelligenz-Test”
3. Female and male subjects identify alluring (Multiple Choice Word Fluency Test; MWT-B,
stimuli of the opposite gender with higher (Lehrl, 1977)). Verbal intelligence exhibits a high
accuracy as compared to stimuli of the reliability and validity and is correlated with
same gender. measures of global intelligence (Lehrl, 1977; Lehrl,
4. Alluring stimuli are better recognised and Triebig, & Fischer, 1995; Merz, Lehrl, Galster, &
chosen more frequently by the opposite Erzigkeit, 1975) (r = 0.72). Approval for the
than by the same gender. investigation was obtained from the local ethics
committee and the study was performed according
to the Declaration of Helsinki. Before their inclu-
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brain areas differ in their activation during per- developing smile and a slight widening of the
ception of dynamic compared to static stimuli palpebral fissure.
(Kilts, Egan, Gideon, Ely, & Hoffman, 2003;
Sato, Kochiyama, Yoshikawa, Naito, & Matsu-
mura, 2004; Trautmann et al., 2009). Further-
Experimental design and task
more, brain areas activated during perception of Visual and audio-visual stimuli were presented on
dynamic emotional stimuli differed between the a 17-inch flat screen (LG FLATRON L1953PM)
two genders (Kret, Pichon, Grèzes, & de with a resolution of 800 × 600 pixels. The size of
Gelder, 2011). speaker’s face on the screen had approximately the
Therefore, short video sequences (resolution: same size as a real face. In the auditory and audio-
720 × 576 pixels, sound: 48 kHz, 16 bit, mean visual conditions sound was conveyed through
duration = 965 ms; SD = 402 ms) were presented headphones (Sennheiser, HD 515), with partici-
by two unimodal conditions (auditory = A, visual pants adjusting the volume individually. The
= V) and one bimodal condition (audio-visual = experiment took part in a quiet room where
AV). Stimulus material consisted of eight words participants were seated in a comfortable position
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spoken by professional actors (2 female, with their heads at a distance of ∼70 cm from the
2 male) in neutral, as well as in four different screen. Stimuli presentation occurred in a rando-
emotional intonations (happy, alluring, angry, mised order and the full set of stimuli was
disgusted) with a congruent facial expression. presented twice with a five minute break between
The complete stimulus set contained 120 different the sessions.
stimuli (8 words × 5 emotional categories × 3 Each trial was structured as follows: first, a
modalities). Stimulus material was also balanced horizontal scale showing five emotional categories
for the gender of the displays. was presented for one second (1; see Figure 1).
The stimuli used in the present study were Emotional categories were numbered consecutively
taken from a set which was validated in previous from left to right with the appropriate number
experiments (Kreifelts et al., 2007) with emotion indicated below the name of the respective cat-
categorisation hit rates well above chance level. egory. To avoid possible laterality effects the
Considering semantic valence, words were positions of the emotional categories on the scale
selected and balanced according to ratings on a were permuted resulting in a set of eight different
9-point Self-Assessment Manikin scale (SAM; scales. These were changed between the partici-
Bradley & Lang, 1994) as assessed in a previous pants. The neutral category was always positioned
study (Herbert, Kissler, Junghöfer, Peyk, & Rock- centrally whereas the negative (angry, disgusted)
stroh, 2006): Four words had a neutral connota- and positive (happy, alluring) categories were
tion (e.g., “Möbel” [furniture], mean valence = placed contralaterally. With the aim of directing
5.2) and four words, in equal parts, had a positive the participants’ attention to the stimulus, a yellow
(e.g., “Freundschaft” [friendship], mean valence fixation cross and a pure tone (302 Hz) were
rating = 8.7) or negative connotation (e.g., “Eiter” presented simultaneously for one second (2). Sub-
[pus], mean valence rating = 1.9). sequently, the stimulus was presented (3). After
In addition to basic emotions including happi- stimulus offset the emotional categories scale was
ness, anger and disgust alluring expressions were shown again (4). As soon as an emotional category
also used in the stimulus set. Alluring stimuli were was chosen, a short visual feedback (700 ms)
generated by the actors’ nonverbal expression of occurred (5). The response window (10 s duration)
sexual interest in an inviting manner using a was time-locked to the onset of the stimulus. The
seductive tone of voice. The resulting alluring trial duration ranged, depending on stimulus dura-
expressions were uniformly characterised by a soft tion and response time, from 3.2 to 12.7 seconds.
and sustained intonation in the lower vocal Responses were given via horizontally adjoining
frequency spectrum accompanied by a slowly keys on the computer keyboard (number keys 1 to 5
Figure 1. Experimental design. Emotional stimuli were presented auditorily, visually and audio-visually and should be classified with
respect to the emotional category. Presentation occurred in randomised order and stimuli were balanced for emotional category and for
modality. A horizontal scale with five categories (“EROTIK” = alluring expression, “FREUDE” = happy expression, “NEUTRAL” =
neutral expression, “ÄRGER” = angry expression, “EKEL” = disgusted expression) was used. The order of the categories varied resulting in
eight scales which were balanced across participants. The scale was presented prior to and after stimulus presentation and participants received
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a visual feedback after response selection. The response window had a maximum duration of 10s beginning with the onset of the stimulus.
Depending on response time the trial duration ranged from 3.2 to 12.7 seconds. Copyright © 2012 by the American Psychological
Association. Reproduced (or Adapted) with permission. The official citation that should be used in referencing this material is
Lambrecht, L., Kreifelts, B., & Wildgruber, D. (2012). Age-related decrease in recognition of emotional facial and prosodic
expressions. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 12(3), 529–539. doi: 10.1037/a0026827. No further reproduction or distribution is
permitted without written permission from the American Psychological Association.
on the letter block). Participants were told to use emotional intelligence (Schutte et al., 1998). The
only their right index finger for response selection. SREIT corresponds to Salovey and Mayer’s
Furthermore, participants were instructed to clas- framework of emotional intelligence (Salovey &
sify the presented stimulus as quickly as possible Mayer, 1990) implying appraisal, expression, regu-
and based solely on non-verbal emotional cues lation, as well as, utilisation of emotions relating to
while ignoring potential emotional word content. oneself and to others and it is also related to well-
Participants were instructed to appraise the emo- being and measures of social skills with high test–
tional state of the presented person based on retest reliability (0.78; Schutte et al., 2001, 1998).
emotional prosody and/or emotional facial expres- The SREIT consists of 33 items with each item
sion and to select the emotional category that fitted being rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly
their impression best. agree, 5 = Strongly disagree) resulting in scores
Before the main experiment participants were ranging between 33 and 165. Higher scores indic-
familiarised with the experimental setting in a ate a greater degree of trait emotional intelligence.
short training session comprised of 15 stimuli, Three of the items were reverse-scored.
which were not presented in the main experiment.
The experiment did not start before the particip-
Mood and arousal
ant fully understood the procedure and indicated
that she/he was ready to begin. In total partici- Prior to the experiment, participants rated their
pants judged 15 stimuli prior to and 240 stimuli arousal (1 = Very calm, 9 = Highly aroused) and their
during the experiment. mood (1 = Very bad, 9 = Very good) on a 9-point
Self-Assessment Manikin scale (Bradley &
Lang, 1994).
Additional measures
Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SREIT) TAP
Following the experiment the participants com- The subtest “Daueraufmerksamkeit” of the
pleted the SREIT, a self-reported trait measure of “Testbatterie zur Aufmerksamkeitsprüfung” (TAP),
version 2.1 (Vera Fimm, Psychologische Testsys- evaluated, and in the third ANOVA the unbiased
teme, Herzogenrath) is a valid and reliable test to hit rate (Hu) was used. Partial eta-squared (ηp2)
assess the participants’ ability for sustained atten- served as a measure of effect size. All resulting
tion and working memory (Cronbach’s alpha p-values were corrected for heterogeneous correla-
= .985, test–retest-reliability 0.81 after 25 days; tions (Geisser & Greenhouse, 1958).
Zimmermann & Fimm, 2002). Response times
and mistakes (number of reactions without any
critical stimulus) were registered. Raw hit rates
Please note that this data set was analysed with
Significant main effects were observed for all four
the focus on age as well (Lambrecht, Kreifelts, &
factors of the ANOVA (Modality, Emotional
Wildgruber, 2012).
Category, Gender of the Participant, Gender
Display). Statistical measures of all main effects
RESULTS and interactions are listed in Table 1. Subsequent
matched sample t-tests for male participants
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Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS revealed a significant higher raw hit rate for
Statistics 17.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). recognition of alluring stimuli in female as com-
The individual hit rates were averaged across the pared to male displays, t(39) = 4.6, p < .01. Female
two sessions (repetitions) of the experiment. Three participants also showed significantly higher raw
four-factorial analyses of variance (ANOVAs) for hit rates for recognition of alluring stimuli in
repeated measures with Modality (auditory, visual, female as compared to male displays, t(43) = 2.3,
audio-visual), Emotional Category (happy, allur- p < .05. A t-test for independent samples did not
ing, neutral, angry, disgusted) and Gender of evidence a significant difference between men and
Display as within-subject factors and Gender of women in decoding alluringness from female
Participant as between-subject factor were per- versus male displays, t(42) = 0.9, p = .38.
formed. In the first ANOVA raw hit rates were The means of the raw hit rates of the separate
analysed, in the second selection biases were emotional categories and of the average across all
Table 1. Main effects and interactions of the ANOVA for repeated measures for raw hit rates
Notes: Mod = modality; Emo = emotional category; G (Display) = Display’s gender; G (Participant) = Participant’s gender.
*p < .05; **p < .01.
emotional categories for men and women as well comparisons (10). Subsequently, we investigated
as t-tests for the comparison of the raw hit rates if men and women differed in their emotion
between the genders are displayed in the supple- confusion rates. Therefore, we used t-tests for
mental material (Table 6). independent samples comparing the respective
frequency of choosing an incorrect emotional
category instead of the right one. Overall 20
Gender specific response biases
confusions were compared between the two
We conducted a second repeated-measures genders.
ANOVA with Modality, Emotional Category In the subsequent t-tests only a single difference
and Gender Display as within-subject factors and remained significant after correction for multiple
Gender of Participant as a between-subject factor comparisons. The difference between female and
on the frequencies with which emotion categories male displays with regard to the difference between
were selected. The ANOVA (Modality × Emo- the choices of alluring and neutral as an emotional
tional Category × Gender of the Participant × category was significant for the gender of the
Gender Display) revealed a significant effect for participants, t(82) = −3.03, p < .05. Both men
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the Emotional Category, a significant interaction and women chose alluring rather than neutral
between Emotional Category and Modality, a when an actress presented the stimulus. For men
significant interaction between Emotional Cat- (mean difference ± standard error of the difference:
egory and Gender Display, a significant interaction 0.07 ± 0.01), this tendency was significantly larger
between Emotional Category, Gender of the than it was for women (0.02 ± 0.01).
Participant and Gender Display, as well as a For a complete confusion matrix of stimulus
significant interaction between Emotional Cat- category and response selection (Table 7) as well
egory and Modality and Gender Display. For the as for Bonferroni corrected comparisons of the
statistical values see Table 2. In order to further confusions (Table 8); see supplemental material.
analyse the interaction between Gender of parti-
cipant, Gender Display and Emotional Category,
Unbiased hit rates
differences between the frequencies of choosing
each emotional category displayed by a male or In the third ANOVA, the unbiased hit rate (Hu)
female model were calculated. Subsequently, these was used. This is a precise measure that accounts
differences were compared across the emotional for false alarms and biases when using response
categories. These differences, which are technically categories by multiplying the raw hit rate with the
first order interaction terms, were compared positive predictive value (Wagner, 1993). It is
between the genders of the participants. P-values defined as “the joint probability that a stimulus
were Bonferoni-corrected for the number of category is correctly identified given that it is
Table 2. Main effects and interactions of the ANOVA for repeated measures for the emotional categories
Notes: Mod = modality; Emo = emotional category; G (Display) = Display’s gender; G (Participant) = Participant’s gender. *p < .05; **p < .01.
presented at all and that a response is correctly 0.01 (A). The main effect of Emotional Category
used given that it is used at all”. So, with regard to was based on the following pattern: alluring
our experiment, it combines the sensitivity as well expressions (0.70 ± 0.01) were better recognised
as the specificity of the subjects’ ability to correctly than any other emotional category, t(83) ≥ 4.1, p <
classify emotional stimuli. For the following stat- .01, followed by happy (0.66 ± 0.01), t(83) ≥ 5.5,
istical analyses arc sine transformed unbiased hit p < .01 and then neutral (0.59 ± 0.01), angry (0.58
rates were used (Wagner, 1993). ± 0.01) and disgusted expressions (0.58 ± 0.01)
The ANOVA (Modality × Emotional Cat- with no significant differences between the last
egory × Gender of the Participant × Gender three categories, t(83) ≤ 1.4, p ≥ .16.
Display) revealed a main effect of Modality, The source of the interaction between Modality
Emotional Category and Gender Display, but no and Emotional Category was investigated by com-
main effect of Gender of the Participant. There paring the differences of unbiased hit rates of the
was a significant interaction between Modality three modalities between the emotional categories
and Emotional Category, as well as a significant (see Table 4 for the statistical values and Figure 2).
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interaction between Modality and Gender of the The recognition rates were higher for V than A
Participant. Furthermore, there was a significant for every emotional category, t(83) ≥ 4.2, p < .01,
interaction between Modality and Gender Display with the exception of alluring expressions, which
and a significant interaction between Emotional exhibited comparable recognition rates in both
Category and Gender Display, as well as between unimodal conditions, t(83) = 0.7, p > .05. The
Modality and Emotional Category and Gender greatest difference was found for disgust as
Display. For the statistical values see Table 3. compared to the remaining categories, followed
The main effect of Modality was due to higher by happy, angry and neutral expressions. The
hit rates for AV than for either of the unimodal comparison between AV and A showed a similar
conditions, t(83) ≥ 12.6, p < .01, d = 1.384 and to pattern with the greatest difference for disgusted
higher hit rates for V than A, t(83) = 15.1, p < .01, expressions. In contrast, the difference between
d = −1.646. Mean unbiased hit rates (± SEM) AV and V showed the greatest values for neutral
were 0.76 ± 0.01 (AV), 0.65 ± 0.01 (V) and 0.45 ± and alluring expressions.
Table 3. Main effects and interactions of the ANOVA for repeated measures for unbiased hit rates
Notes: Mod = modality; Emo = emotional category; G (Display) = Display’s gender; G (Participant) = Participant’s gender. *p < .05; **p < .01.
Table 4. Differences in unbiased hit rate between the modalities: Comparisons between the emotional categories
V–A t P t p t p t p
Happy — —
Alluring 13.2 <.01 — —
Neutral 10.4 <.01 –3.6 <.01 — —
Angry 6.7 <.01 –5.3 <.01 –2.9 <.01 — —
Disgusted –4.7 <.01 –18.3 <.01 –16.7 <.01 –16.1 <.01
V–A t P t p t p t p
Happy — —
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V–A t P t p t p t p
Happy — —
Alluring –2.8 <.01 — —
Neutral –3.3 <.01 –0.6 ns — —
Angry –1.1 ns 1.1 ns 1.9 ns — —
Disgusted 0.3 ns 2.4 < .05 3.2 <.01 2.9 <.01
Notes: A = auditory; V = visual; AV = audio-visual modality. t = t-value; p = p-value, ns = not significant. Significant results are bold. The t-
and p-values refer to the mean difference between the unbiased hit rate for each emotional category for the two modalities.
t(82) = 0.9, p = .350). T-tests for independent t(82) = 2.1, p = .041, d = 0.46 (women: 0.62 ± 0.02,
samples indicated that women (mean ± SEM: men: 0.56 ± 0.02). No significant gender differences
0.50 ± 0.02) had significantly higher unbiased hit were found for angry, t(82) = 1.44, p = .152, d =
rates than men (0.40 ± 0.02) for auditory stimuli, 0.315 (women: 0.60 ± 0.02, men: 0.56 ± 0.02) and
t(82) = 3.5, p = .001, d = 0.765, but not for visual, t disgusted stimuli, t(82) = 0.80, p = .426,
(82) = 1.2, p = .236, d = 0.262 (women: 0.66 ± 0.02, d = 0.175 (women: 0.59 ± 0.02, men: 0.58 ± 0.02;
men: 0.63 ± 0.02), or audio-visual stimuli, t(82) = see Figure 4).
0.4, p = .681, d = 0.087 (women: 0.77 ± 0.02, men: The difference in unbiased hit rates for alluring
0.75 ± 0.02; Figure 3). For auditory stimuli 12% of stimuli of the display’s opposite and same gender
the variance in recognition rates (adjusted R2) could was not significant, for male, t(39) = −1.4, p = .157,
be explained by gender, for visual stimuli the nor female participants, t(43) = 0.5, p = .59.
explained variance amounted to 2% and for audio-
visual stimuli to 0.2%. Furthermore, we calculated
the minimum difference between the bimodal and Mediation analysis
the maximum of both unimodal conditions AV –
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Figure 3. Unbiased hit rates for separate modalities and gender Figure 4. Unbiased hit rates for separate emotional categories
groups. Error bars represent standard errors of the means. Note: and gender groups. Error bars represent standard errors of the
*p < .05. means. Note: *p < .05.
No significant differences between women and and 8,000 Hz, β = −0.454, t(82) = 4.6, p < .01.
men could be observed for age, education years, A multiple mediation analysis with hearing loss
verbal IQ, mean hearing and vision loss, SREIT of the frequencies 4,000 to 8,000 Hz as potential
score, arousal score, and sustained attention. For mediators of the effect of gender on emotion
the mood score, the analysis indicated slightly recognition of auditory stimuli was conducted. It
higher values for men. Means and standard confirmed a total effect of gender on emotion
deviations for the listed factors groups are shown recognition performance (c path), t = −3.55,
in Table 5 for both genders. With regard to p < .01. Furthermore, the analysis indicated a
hearing loss at the separate frequencies men non-significant total effect of all mediators (ab
showed significant greater hearing loss than wo- path; 95% CI: −.0687, −.0055). Analyses of the
men at 4,000 Hz, t(82) = 2.4, p < .05, 6,000 Hz, separate frequencies of hearing loss as potential
t(63) = 2.9, p < .01, and 8,000 Hz, t(71) = 2.9, mediators revealed that hearing loss for the
p < .01. frequency of 8,000 Hz (95% CI: −.1079,
Notes: SD = standard deviation; Verbal IQ = verbal intelligence, measured by MWT-B; SREIT = self-report emotional intelligence test;
arousal and mood scores were rated by each participant and ranged from 1 to 10 with higher arousal scores indicating greater arousal and
higher mood scores indicating better mood; TAP = “Testbatterie zur Aufmerksamkeitsprüfung” = battery of tests investigating attention,
subtest “Daueraufmerksamkeit” = sustained attention. The p-values are two-tailed.
−.0030), but not of 6,000 Hz (95% CI: −.0053, Females, being mainly responsible for child rear-
−.0971) and 4,000 Hz (95% CI: −.0683, −.0028), ing in most parts of the world generally rely on
had a significant mediating influence on emotion correct recognition of nonverbal emotional signals
recognition performance of auditory stimuli. After until infants learn to speak. This relation has
removing the influence of hearing loss on the already been described by Babchuk, Hames, and
relationship between gender and emotion recog- Thompson (1985) as “The primary caretaker
nition the direct effect was still significant hypothesis”. As our female ancestors had to take
(c′ path), t = −2.67, p < .05. care of their household chores while simulta-
neously paying attention to their infants without
permanent visual contact recognition of emotional
DISCUSSION signals from the voice might be considered to be
of vital importance for their well-being. Thus,
The present study confirmed that women are more from an evolutionary point of view children whose
accurate in the recognition of emotional prosody. mothers had highly developed abilities in emotion
In contrast to previous observations of gender recognition may have had a selection advantage. A
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presented by an actress. These findings demon- status between women and men, for example, sex
strate an emotion-specific effect rather than a hormone levels have an impact on facial emotion
general-interaction effect of the gender of the recognition (Guapo et al., 2009).
participant and gender of the display. As the Finally, our results suggest that nonverbal
inclusion of alluring stimuli is novel, comparisons emotional expressions are better recognised on
to other studies cannot be drawn yet. the basis of bimodal rather than unimodal pre-
This bias to choose alluring was observed to a sentation and, second, that emotions are better
greater degree in men than women. As, based on recognised from facial expressions than from
unbiased hit rates, no difference in recognition emotional prosody. This is in line with earlier
accuracy of alluring stimuli between female and findings (Collignon et al., 2008, 2010; Hawk
male displays occurred one can assume that there et al., 2009; Kreifelts et al., 2007).
is a general tendency in men to select this category When interpreting the results on basis of the
more often for female displays but there is no overall recognition accuracy, one has to bear in
evidence for a gender-specific increase in recogni- mind that the emotions differ in their recognition
tion performance in male subjects. Moreover, it is pattern between modalities: Most emotional
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interesting to note that female participants also expressions are better recognised from facial than
had higher raw hit rates in recognition of alluring from vocal cues (disgusted, happy, angry, neutral),
stimuli portrayed by a female speaker. From an but “alluring” was the only category of expressions
evolutionary point of view, for example in assuring without visual recognition advantage. As the
the reproduction of offspring, different signals implication of alluring expressions in an emotion
might have been relevant in our ancestors depend- recognition paradigm is very novel, any interpreta-
ing on the gender of the sender: Whereas for tions regarding the reason for this characteristic of
women alluring behaviour prevailed, men might alluring expressions have to be treated as tentative.
have been more likely to be successful by signalling It seems worthwhile, though, to consider the
strength. The tendency for choosing alluring in setting and situations in which alluring cues are
females was greater for male than for female typically used as a potential cause of the observed
participants. This may be the result of an expecta- effect: Most often these are situations where
tion bias in men, expecting alluring signals from individuals are close to each other with optimal
women rather than from men. Here, ubiquitous transmission conditions for vocal cues.
awareness of gender stereotypes could play a role. Identification rates for recognition of disgust
Alternatively, the men’s bias in categorising and happiness, on the other hand, evidence a very
female stimuli as alluring may reflect their aversion strong visual recognition advantage, which is in
to appearing to exhibit homosexual attraction. line with previous studies on recognition of vocal
Mediation analysis revealed that the female and facial cues expressing basic emotional states
advantage for recognition of auditory emotional (Banse & Scherer, 1996; Calvo & Lundqvist,
stimuli is indeed partially conveyed by a more 2008; Castro & Lima, 2010; Dyck et al., 2008;
pronounced hearing loss of male participants at the Kirouac & Doré, 1985; Leppänen & Hietanen,
8,000 Hz frequency. However, the gender effect is 2004; Leppänen, Tenhunen, & Hietanen, 2003;
not fully explained by the influence of this basic Williams et al., 2009). Another driving factor for
factor. Thus, other reasons have to be considered the interaction effect between sensory modality
for the gender difference in accuracy of emotion and type of emotional expression was the relatively
recognition. Several factors with a potential causal smaller difference between recognition rates for
relationship with the observed gender difference visual and audio-visual stimulation in those emo-
could be found in differences in brain structure tional categories with particular high recognition
(Cahill, 2006), in cerebral activation during emo- rates under visual stimulation (disgust, happiness).
tion perception (Kret et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2002; Here, ceiling effects have to be discussed as a
Rymarczyk & Grabowska, 2007) or in hormonal potential cause of this effect.
ance of each emotion in daily life, personality vior, 21(1), 3–21. doi:10.1023/A:1024902500935
traits) within a study design comprising emotion Bonebright, T. L., Thompson, J. L., & Leger, D. W.
presentation in several sensory modalities could (1996). Gender stereotypes in the expression and
help to assess gender differences in emotion perception of vocal affect. Sex Roles, 34(5), 429–445.
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Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1994). Measuring
ner. Finally, as the present study evidenced gender
emotion: The Self-Assessment Manikin and the
differences in emotion recognition in the auditory, Semantic Differential. Journal of Behavior Therapy
but not the visual, modality, it would be worth- and Experimental Psychiatry, 25(1), 49–59.
while to investigate how these differences relate to doi:10.1016/0005-7916(94)90063-9
general face and voice recognition abilities among Cahill, L. (2006). Why sex matters for neuroscience.
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ods, 40(1), 109–115. doi:10.3758/BRM.40.1.109
Castro, S. L., & Lima, C. F. (2010). Recognizing
Manuscript received 26 February 2012
Revised manuscript received 17 July 2013
emotions in spoken language: A validated set of
Manuscript accepted 19 August 2013 Portuguese sentences and pseudosentences for
First published online 21 October 2013 research on emotional prosody. Behavior Research
Methods, 42(1), 74–81. doi:10.3758/BRM.42.1.74
Champagne, F. A. (2013). Effects of stress across
Supplementary material generations: Why sex matters. Biological Psychiatry,
73(1), 2–4. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.10.004
Supplementary material (Tables 6–8) is available via Collignon, O., Girard, S., Gosselin, F., Roy, S., Saint-
the ‘Supplementary’ tab on the article’s online page Amour, D., Lassonde, M., & Lepore, F. (2008).
(http://dx.doi.org.10.1080/02699931.2013.837378). Audio-visual integration of emotion expression. Brain
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