The effect of menstrual cycle on sex differences in attentional capture

INUKAI, Tomoe; SHIMOMURA, Tomonari; KAWAHARA, Jun-ichiro · 2013 · Crossref

DOI: 10.4992/pacjpa.77.0_3ev-080

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Summary

This study investigates how the menstrual cycle influences sex differences in attentional capture, specifically examining whether hormonal fluctuations modulate the extent to which irrelevant stimuli capture attention. The research addresses the broader question of how biological factors, particularly those related to the menstrual cycle, interact with gender to affect cognitive processes like selective attention. Previous research has established sex differences in attention, but the specific role of menstrual cycle phases in these differences remained unclear. The experimental design involved two distinct tasks: an attentional capture task and a visual search task. Participants included 19 women and 19 men. For the female participants, testing was conducted across three phases of the menstrual cycle: the menstrual phase (MP, days 2–7), the follicular phase (FP, days 9–15), and the luteal phase (LP, days 18–25). Male participants were tested three times to match the number of sessions. In the attentional capture task, participants performed a spatial orientation task with distractors, measuring reaction times and accuracy. The visual search task involved searching for a target among distractors, with conditions varying by target presence and distractor type. Statistical analyses included repeated measures ANOVA with factors for sex, menstrual cycle phase, and task conditions. The results indicated significant main effects of sex and menstrual cycle phase on attentional capture. Specifically, women showed greater attentional capture during the luteal phase compared to the menstrual and follicular phases. Men exhibited consistent levels of attentional capture across their testing sessions, which were comparable to women’s performance during the menstrual and follicular phases but lower than during the luteal phase. The interaction between sex and menstrual cycle phase was significant, suggesting that hormonal changes during the luteal phase enhance the susceptibility to attentional capture in women. In the visual search task, similar patterns were observed, with women in the luteal phase showing slower reaction times and lower accuracy when distractors were present, indicating increased interference from irrelevant stimuli. The significance of these findings lies in the demonstration that menstrual cycle phase is a critical factor in understanding sex differences in attention. The study suggests that hormonal fluctuations, particularly those occurring during the luteal phase, can modulate attentional control mechanisms, leading to increased capture by irrelevant stimuli. This has implications for both theoretical models of attention and practical applications, such as understanding performance variability in tasks requiring selective attention across different phases of the menstrual cycle. The results contribute to the growing body of evidence that biological factors play a substantial role in cognitive processes, highlighting the need to consider hormonal status in studies of sex differences in cognition.

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• attention selective divided