Sex differences in attention to disgust facial expressions

ABSTRACT

Research demonstrates that women experience disgust more readily and with more intensity than men. The experience of disgust is associated with increased attention to disgust-related stimuli, but no prior study has examined sex differences in attention to disgust facial expressions. We hypothesised that women, compared to men, would demonstrate increased attention to disgust facial expressions. Participants (n = 172) completed an eye tracking task to measure visual attention to emotional facial expressions. Results indicated that women spent more time attending to disgust facial expressions compared to men. Unexpectedly, we found that men spent significantly more time attending to neutral faces compared to women. The findings indicate that women’s increased experience of emotional disgust also extends to attention to disgust facial stimuli. These findings may help to explain sex differences in the experience of disgust and in diagnoses of anxiety disorders in which disgust plays an important role.

KEYWORDS:

• Attention
• sex
• disgust
• eye tracking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We acknowledge that a benchmark of 70% valid eye tracking is somewhat arbitrary. However, our aim in reporting this cutoff is to improve upon prior work that has noted removing low quality eye tracking data, but does not specify how such low quality data was specifically identified (e.g., Kellough et al., 2008).

2. The following KDEF images were used: AF01ANS, AF01DIS, AF01HAS, AF01NES, AF01SAS, AF19ANS, AF19HAS, AF19NES, AF19SAS, AF13ANS, AF13DIS, AF13HAS, AF13NES, AF13SAS, AF25ANS, AF24DIS, AF25HAS, AF25NES, AF25SAS, AF16ANS, AF16DIS, AF16HAS, AF16NES AF16SAS, AM09ANS, AM09DIS, AM09HAS, AM09NES, AM09SAS, AM11ANS, AM11DIS, AM11HAS, AM11NES, AM11SAS, AM17ANS, AM17DIS, AM17HAS, AM17NES, AM16SAS, AM23ANS, AM23DIS, AM23HAS, AM23NES, AM23SAS, AM04ANS, AM04DIS, AM04HAS, AM04NES, AM04SAS.