Sex differences in emotional evaluation of film clips: interaction with five high arousal emotional categories

The present study aimed to investigate gender differences in the emotional evaluation of 18 film clips divided into six categories: Erotic, Scenery, Neutral, Sadness, Compassion, and Fear. 41 female and 40 male students rated all clips for valence-pleasantness, arousal, level of elicited distress, anxiety, jittery feelings, excitation, and embarrassment. Analysis of positive films revealed higher levels of arousal, pleasantness, and excitation to the Scenery clips in both genders, but lower pleasantness and greater embarrassment in women compared to men to Erotic clips. Concerning unpleasant stimuli, unlike men, women reported more unpleasantness to the Compassion, Sadness, and Fear compared to the Neutral clips and rated them also as more arousing than did men. They further differentiated the films by perceiving greater arousal to Fear than to Compassion clips. Women rated the Sadness and Fear clips with greater Distress and Jittery feelings than men did. Correlation analysis between arousal and the other emotional scales revealed that, although men looked less aroused than women to all unpleasant clips, they also showed a larger variance in their emotional responses as indicated by the high number of correlations and their relatively greater extent, an outcome pointing to a masked larger sensitivity of part of male sample to emotional clips. We propose a new perspective in which gender difference in emotional responses can be better evidenced by means of film clips selected and clustered in more homogeneous categories, controlled for arousal levels, as well as evaluated through a number of emotion focused adjectives

Reaction time perception and plasticity

Notre environnement change constamment ce qui impose une adaptation de nos comportements d’exploration. En particulier, les mouvements oculaires, qui nous permettent de recueillir des informations visuelles, font preuves d’une grande plasticité : puisque nous n’avons accès qu’à une portion limitée de notre environnement visuel à chaque instant, la nécessité d’orienter le regard dans la bonne direction et au bon moment fait peser une contrainte forte sur nos comportements oculomoteurs. Il a ainsi été montré que les temps de réactions des mouvements oculaires s’ajustent aux contraintes temporelles de l’environnement. Ceci suppose que nous soyons capable de percevoir nos temps de réaction mais cette capacité n’a pas été étudiée. Le présent travail a permis de quantifier cette perception temporelle des temps de réactions pour les mouvements oculaires ainsi que pour les mouvements de bras.Our environment continuously changes and our capacity to gather new sensory information must adjust to it accordingly. One striking example of information-foraging adaptation is the plasticity of saccadic eye movements: Because, in humans, only a small portion of our surroundings is visible at any particular moment, the need to orient the eyes at the right time strongly shapes eye movements and it has been established that saccadic reaction times change according to environmental contingencies. To do so, we must be able to perceive our reaction time but this ability has not been studied yet. This is the aim of the present work. In a series of experiments, we found that participants accurately estimated their reaction times durations in saccadic and manual movement tasks

Perception of saccadic reaction time

Abstract That saccadic reaction times (SRTs) may depend on reinforcement contingencies has been repeatedly demonstrated. It follows that one must be able to discriminate one’s latencies to adequately assign credit to one’s actions, which is to connect behaviour to its consequence. To quantify the ability to perceive one’s SRT, we used an adaptive procedure to train sixteen participants in a stepping visual target saccade paradigm. Subsequently, we measured their RTs perceptual threshold at 75% in a conventional constant stimuli procedure. For each trial, observers had to saccade to a stepping target. Then, in a 2-AFC task, they had to choose one value representing the actual SRT, while the other value proportionally differed from the actual SRT. The relative difference between the two alternatives was computed by either adding or subtracting from the actual SRT a percent-difference value randomly chosen among a fixed set. Feedback signalling the correct choice was provided after each response. Overall, our results showed that the 75% SRT perceptual threshold averaged 23% (about 40 ms). The ability to discriminate small SRT differences provides support for the possibility that the credit assignment problem may be solved even for short reaction times

Impact of deafness on numerical tasks implying visuospatial and verbal processes

The literature suggests that deaf individuals lag behind their hearing peers in terms of mathematical abilities. However, it is still unknown how unique sensorimotor experiences, like deafness, might shape number-space interactions. We still do not know either the spatial frame of reference deaf individuals use to map numbers onto space in different numerical tasks. To examine these issues, deaf, hearing signer and hearing control adults were asked to perform a number comparison and a parity judgment task with the hands uncrossed and crossed over the body midline. Deafness appears to selectively affect the performance of the numerical task relying on verbal processes while keeping intact the task relying on visuospatial processes. Indeed, while a classic SNARC effect was found in all groups and in both hand postures of the number comparison task, deaf adults did not show the SNARC effect in both hand postures of the parity judgment task. These results are discussed in light of the spatial component characterizing the counting system used in sign language

Stronger neural response to canonical finger-number configurations in deaf compared to hearing adults revealed by FPVS-EEG

The linguistic counting system of deaf signers consists of a manual counting format that uses specific structures for number words. Interestingly, the number signs from 1 to 4 in the Belgian sign languages correspond to the finger-montring habits of hearing individuals. These hand configurations could therefore be considered as signs (i.e., part of a language system) for deaf, while they would simply be number gestures (not linguistic) for hearing controls. A Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation design was used with electroencephalography recordings to examine whether these finger-number configurations are differently processed by the brain when they are signs (in deaf signers) as compared to when they are gestures (in hearing controls). Results showed that deaf signers show stronger discrimination responses to canonical finger-montring configurations compared to hearing controls. A second control experiment furthermore demonstrated that this finding was not merely due to the experience deaf signers have with the processing of hand configurations, as brain responses did not differ between groups for finger-counting configurations. Number configurations are therefore processed differently by deaf signers, but only when these configurations are part of their language system

Panel A shows the ratings of emotional valence in response to the six emotional film categories measured on a 1–9 analogue scale in males and females.

<p>Asterisks indicate * p<0.05 and ** p< 0.01. Red indicates the within-females post-hoc comparisons. Blue: within-males post-hoc comparisons. Black: between-groups post-hoc comparisons. Panel B shows the ratings of self-perceived arousal in response to the six emotional film categories measured on a 1–9 analogue scale in males and females. Asterisks and colors are as above.</p