the effect of sex hormone on the sex differences in attentional control

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25380993
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: Kobe Shinwa Women's University
• Principal Investigator: Inukai Tomoe 神戸親和女子大学, 発達教育学部, 准教授 (10531684)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KAWAHARA JUN-ICHIRO 北海道大学, 大学院文学研究科, 特任准教授 (30322241)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: テストステロン / 男女差 / 注意制御 / 空間認識

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we investigated the effect of testosterone on sex differences in cognitive abilities. We assessed the second to fourth digit ratio (2D : 4D) of hands and collected saliva samples to analyze testosterone concentration. We used three types of cognitive tasks which males show a trend towards better performance than females; temporal search task, in which observers were required to identify a target embedded among nontargets, mental rotation task, and modified trail making test, in which observers were required to move a cursor with a trail onto targets during which the mouse was randomly inverted. We found a significant correlation between testosterone concentration from 2d : 4D ratio and the accuracy of the mental rotation task, while there were no correlations between testosterone concentration from saliva samples and performances on all three types of tasks. These results suggest that the effect of testosterone on sex differences is restricted to some cognitive tasks.

Free Research Field

実験心理学