Gender differences associated with orienting attentional networks in healthy subjects / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

ABSTRACT

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Selective attention is considered one of the main components of cognitive functioning. A number of studies have demonstrated gender differences in cognition. This study aimed to investigate the gender differences in selective attention in healthy subjects.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The present experiment examined the gender differences associated with the efficiency of three attentional networks alerting, orienting, and executive control attention in 73 healthy subjects (38 males). All participants performed a modified version of the Attention Network Test (ANT).</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Females had higher orienting scores than males (t = 2.172, P < 0.05). Specifically, females were faster at covert orienting of attention to a spatially cued location. There were no gender differences between males and females in alerting (t = 0.813, P > 0.05) and executive control (t = 0.945, P > 0.05) attention networks.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>There was a significant gender difference between males and females associated with the orienting network. Enhanced orienting attention in females may function to motivate females to direct their attention to a spatially cued location.</p>