Sex differences in the Simon task help to interpret sex differences in selective attention.

摘要: In the last decade, a number of studies have reported sex differences in selective attention, but unified explanation for these effects is still missing. This study aims to better understand and put them an evolutionary psychological context. 418 adult participants performed computer-based Simon task, which they responded direction left or right pointing arrow appearing from fixation point. Women were more strongly influenced by task-irrelevant spatial information than men (i.e., effect was larger women, Cohen's d = 0.39). Further, analysis behavioral adjustment errors revealed that women slow down following mistakes (d = 0.53). Based on combined results previous current data, it proposed attention are caused underlying core abilities, such as verbal cognition.