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Gender differences in emotion recognition: Impact of sensory modality and

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Gender differences in emotion recognition:

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Lena Lambrecht , Benjamin Kreifelts & Dirk Wildgruber
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Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Eberhard-Karls-University of
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To cite this article: Lena Lambrecht, Benjamin Kreifelts & Dirk Wildgruber (2014) Gender differences
in emotion recognition: Impact of sensory modality and emotional category, Cognition & Emotion, 28:3,
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 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014
Vol. 28, No. 3, 452–469, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.837378

Gender differences in emotion recognition: Impact of

sensory modality and emotional category

Lena Lambrecht, Benjamin Kreifelts, and Dirk Wildgruber

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Tübingen,
Germany

Results from studies on gender differences in emotion recognition vary, depending on the types of
emotion and the sensory modalities used for stimulus presentation. This makes comparability between
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014

different studies problematic. This study investigated emotion recognition of healthy participants
(N = 84; 40 males; ages 20 to 70 years), using dynamic stimuli, displayed by two genders in three
different sensory modalities (auditory, visual, audio-visual) and five emotional categories. The
participants were asked to categorise the stimuli on the basis of their nonverbal emotional content
(happy, alluring, neutral, angry, and disgusted). Hit rates and category selection biases were analysed.
Women were found to be more accurate in recognition of emotional prosody. This effect was partially
mediated by hearing loss for the frequency of 8,000 Hz. Moreover, there was a gender-specific
selection bias for alluring stimuli: Men, as compared to women, chose “alluring” more often when a
stimulus was presented by a woman as compared to a man.

Keywords: Emotion recognition; Gender; Modality and emotional category; Alluring.

Nonverbal communication (e.g., facial expressions,
speech melody—prosody—or gestures) forms an
important basis of human social relationships,
because they convey our social counterpart’s inten-
tions and emotions. Failure to correctly interpret
such nonverbal signals impedes successful social
interaction and may cause irritation and aggression.
In the context of nonverbal communication the
observer’s gender has repeatedly been proposed as
a factor with impact on processing emotional
information. With respect to decoding nonverbal
emotional information women outperformed men
based on drawings, photos or films of faces, hands,
arms, legs, and feet, as well as speech (Hall, 1978).
However, one has to bear in mind that only “less
than 4% of the variance in decoding scores is
accounted for by gender” (Hall, 1978). Two further
reviews (Hall, 1984; McClure, 2000) confirmed
the female advantage in emotion recognition when
investigating infants, children and adolescents.

Correspondence should be addressed to: Lena Lambrecht, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen,
Osianderstrasse 24, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany. E-mail: lenalambrecht@hotmail.de
Supplementary material can be accessed.
This work was supported by a grants of the Fortüne-Program of the University of Tübingen (fortüne 1997-0-0).

© 2013 Taylor & Francis 452


Subsequent studies investigating gender differ-
ences in emotion recognition have mostly focused
on either prosody or facial expressions. However,
they differed in the type of emotions they
included. Thus, results of different modalities are
difficult to compare. In order to overcome this
problem and to increase comparability of emotion
recognition performance across sensory modalities
and emotional categories, we designed a study
with different sensory modalities and several
emotional categories and investigated the influ-
ence of gender of the participant and gender of the
model on emotion recognition
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014
Gender of the participant
Unimodal stimuli. Studies focusing on emotional
facial expressions support the idea of a female
advantage in emotion recognition (Hall &
Matsumoto, 2004; Kirouac & Doré, 1985;
McClure, 2000; Miura, 1993; Montagne, Kessels,
Frigerio, de Haan, & Perrett, 2005; Proverbio,
Matarazzo, Brignone, Del Zotto, & Zani, 2007;
Rotter & Rotter, 1988; Vaskinn et al., 2007;
Williams et al., 2009). Considering specific emo-
tional categories, two studies found no evidence of
a gender difference in the perception of angry
facial expressions (Mandal & Palchoudhury, 1985;
Rotter & Rotter, 1988). The majority of studies,
however, showed a female advantage in emotion
recognition for every emotional category including
angry stimuli (Hall & Matsumoto, 2004).
Data on gender differences in recognition of
emotional prosody, on the other hand, are scarce.
Raithel and Hielscher-Fastabend (2004) found no
gender difference in identifying the emotional
prosody of semantically neutral sentences. How-
ever, with regard to identification rates based on
the intonation of short stories, Bonebright,
Thompson, and Leger (1996) found an advantage
for female raters. With respect to emotion-specific
effects women appear to be more sensitive in
recognition of sad and happy emotional prosody
but not of angry emotional prosody (Fujisawa &
Shinohara, 2011).
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION RECOGNITION
Multimodal stimuli. Comparing auditory and
visual sensory modalities as well as audio-visual
stimulation, the most pronounced gender effect
occurs for audio-visually presented emotions
(Collignon et al., 2010; Hall, 1978). With regard
to multimodal emotion recognition, a female
advantage (ηp2 = .009) was observed based on
judgements of black and white photographs of
facial expressions and voice recordings (Scherer &
Scherer, 2011). However, in the major validation
study the proportion of male and female partici-
pants was not balanced with 25% female partici-
pants. Thus, comparability between men and
women in emotion recognition is limited. Another
multimodal test (Rosenthal, Hall, DiMatteo,
Rogers, & Archer, 1979), focused on decoding
different scenes and found a female advantage too
(effect size d = 0.47). Nonverbal information was
conveyed via 11 different channels whereas faces
or parts of a body were presented and/or content-
filtered vioce or spliced voice. Stimuli were
portrayed by one single woman. However, an
investigation of gender differences in emotion
recognition should account for potential interac-
tions between the gender of the recipient and the
gender of the sender by employing stimuli with a
balanced proportion of the gender of the sender.
Interaction between gender of the participant
and gender of the display
The gender of the actor/actress seems to have an
impact on emotion recognition. Calvo and
Lundqvist (2008) found a tendency for angry faces
to be better recognised in males than in females.
Actresses expressing anger were more often clas-
sified as expressing disgust, than was the case for
male actors. Based on emotional prosody anger
and fear were better recognised from actors and
happiness was better recognised from actresses
(Bonebright et al., 1996). Especially in the choice
of sexually relevant signals, gender of the display
could play a critical role. To our knowledge cross-
gender interaction during perception of alluring
stimuli has been investigated only in one single
study using emotional prosody (Ethofer et al.,
2007). The authors reported increasing responses
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3) 453
 LAMBRECHT, KREIFELTS, WILDGRUBER
at the behavioural level (arousal ratings), as well as
haemodynamic responses within voice sensitive
brain areas (right middle superior temporal gyrus),
to an alluring tone of voice from the opposite
gender. Notably, this effect was confined to
alluring stimuli and no cross-gender interaction
was observed during the perception of neutral,
happy, angry, or fearful prosody.
Emotion recognition performance as a
function of modality and emotional category
Previous studies have indicated that sensory mod-
ality, through which emotional information is
perceived, and multisensory integration of emo-
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014
tional information strongly impact emotion recog-
nition performance. Kreifelts, Ethofer, Grodd,
Erb, and Wildgruber (2007) demonstrated that
emotional facial expressions are recognised with
higher accuracy than emotional prosody. Hawk,
van Kleef, Fischer, and van der Schalk (2009)
compared the accuracy of emotion recognition of
non-linguistic affective vocalisations, speech-
embedded vocal prosody and facial cues and found
lowest scores for speech-embedded vocal prosody
and equivalent scores for the other channels.
Integration of auditory and visually presented
nonverbal emotional information facilitates emo-
tion recognition, resulting in higher accuracy and
faster response times for the recognition of audio-
visual stimuli as compared to visual or auditory
stimuli alone (Collignon et al., 2010; de Gelder &
Vroomen, 2000; Ethofer et al., 2006; Kreifelts
et al., 2007). Kreifelts et al. (2007) could demon-
strate that integration of auditory and visual emo-
tional information was accompanied by an
enhanced activation in the bilateral posterior super-
ior temporal gyrus (pSTG) and right thalamus.
Emotion recognition performance varies across
discrete emotion categories. With regard to facial
expressions happiness is the best recognised emo-
tion among the basic emotions (Kirouac & Doré,
1985; Montagne, Kessels, De Haan, & Perrett,
2007; Ruffman, Henry, Livingstone, & Phillips,
2008; Williams et al., 2009). Neutral expressions
seem to be better recognised than anger and
disgust whereas anger, in turn, seems to be better
454 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3)
recognised than disgust (Williams et al., 2009).
Regarding emotional prosody, Castro and Lima
(2010) observed that neutral prosody is recognised
best, followed by angry, happy and disgusted
prosody. Thus, differences in recognition perform-
ance of specific emotional categories seem to
depend upon the sensory modality through which
the emotional signals are perceived. The recently
developed Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test
(MERT; Bänziger, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2009)
investigated the recognition of dynamic, black and
white expressions of ten emotions (hot anger, cold
anger, panic fear, anxiety, despair, sadness, elation,
happiness, disgust, contempt), which were pre-
sented in four modalities (audio, video, audio/
video, still picture). The authors found a signific-
ant interaction between modality and emotional
category, where disgust and elation were notably
better recognised by face than from voice. Fur-
thermore, authors described that cold as well as
hot anger were recognised better from dynamic
video clips compared to still pictures.
The present study
In order to investigate gender differences in
recognition performance across different sensory
modalities and across a range of emotions, three
modal conditions (unimodal auditory, unimodal
visual and bimodal audio-visual), and five emotion
categories (happy, alluring, angry, disgusted and
neutral) were included. Additionally, we investi-
gated the influence of gender of the display and
the interaction with the gender of the participant.
We included three different performance mea-
sures. The raw hit rate was applied as a measure of
the correct responses. Second, we investigated the
choice of the emotional category irrespective of
whether it is correct or incorrect, to evaluate
selection biases. Thirdly, we used the unbiased
hit rate which measures the correct responses, but
accounts for false alarms.
We hypothesised that:
1. Females show higher emotion recognition
rates than males, for every modal condition
with greatest gender differences in the

audio-visual modality (Collignon et al.,
2010; Hall, 1978).
2. Females exhibit higher emotion recogni-
tion rates than males for every emotional
category, independent of the gender of the
model.
3. Female and male subjects identify alluring
stimuli of the opposite gender with higher
accuracy as compared to stimuli of the
same gender.
4. Alluring stimuli are better recognised and
chosen more frequently by the opposite
than by the same gender.
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014
METHOD
Participants and design
We chose an age-stratified sample of subjects
ranging from 20 to 70 years old in order to prevent
an age-bias introduced through random sample
selection. Eighty-four German native speakers (40
m, 44 f, mean age 44.8 years, sex distribution along
the age range: 20–30 years: 8 m, 8 f; 31–40 years:
8 m, 8 f; 41–50 years: 8 m, 10 f; 51–60 years: 7 m,
10 f; 61–70 years: 9m, 8 f) took part in the present
study. All were right-handed as assessed with the
Edinburgh Inventory (Oldfield, 1971) and none
had any history of neurological or psychiatric
illness. According to results of a figure-based
eyesight test (Sehproben pocketcard Börm Bruck-
meier Verlag, 2002), all participants had normal or
corrected-to-normal vision (measures for the better
eye: mean visual acuity = 92%, SD = 5%). Further-
more, participants had no moderate or severe
hardness of hearing (mean hearing loss (better
ear) = 16.3 dB, SD = 7.4 dB, range 4.6 dB–36.8
dB) as assessed with an audiometer (Interacoustics
screening audiometer AS208, Meyer Audiolo-
gische Technik, Weningen) testing hearing
thresholds for 11 different frequencies (125, 250,
500, 750, 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000, 4000, 6000,
8000 Hz) for each ear separately. The relative
hearing loss for each frequency (decibel = dB) was
calculated by comparing individual hearing thresh-
old with normative hearing thresholds based on
meta-analytical data (Robinson & Sutton, 1979).
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION RECOGNITION
Additionally, mean hearing loss was calculated
across all tested frequencies. The average duration
of education was 18.0 years (SD = 4.8 years).
Verbal intelligence ranged from 93 to 145 (mean
verbal intelligence 124.2, S.D. 13.9) as assessed by
the “Mehrfach-Wortschatz-Intelligenz-Test”
(Multiple Choice Word Fluency Test; MWT-B,
(Lehrl, 1977)). Verbal intelligence exhibits a high
reliability and validity and is correlated with
measures of global intelligence (Lehrl, 1977; Lehrl,
Triebig, & Fischer, 1995; Merz, Lehrl, Galster, &
Erzigkeit, 1975) (r = 0.72). Approval for the
investigation was obtained from the local ethics
committee and the study was performed according
to the Declaration of Helsinki. Before their inclu-
sion in the study participants gave written
informed consent.
Procedure
Participants watched short video sequences with
models pronouncing single words expressing dif-
ferent emotions through their speech melody and
facial expressions. The video sequences were
presented audio-visually (AV) or unimodally (aud-
itory A, visually V). The participants’ task was to
identify the presented emotion based on the
nonverbal information expressed within the
dynamic auditory, visual or audio-visual stimuli.
Subsequently, measures of hearing and vision,
mood, arousal, sustained attention, and trait emo-
tional intelligence (SREIT; Schutte et al., 1998)
were collected to identify potential confounders
and to test if gender associated variance in emotion
recognition might be attributed to one or several of
these factors. Furthermore, based on an actual
meta-analysis (Murphy & Hall, 2011) showing
an association between intelligence and nonverbal
cue decoding accuracy, we were interested in
whether emotion recognition performance was
associated with performance in the TAP as an
aspect of cognitive ability.
Stimulus material
Dynamic stimuli are better recognised than static
ones (Trautmann, Fehr, & Herrmann, 2009) and
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3) 455
 LAMBRECHT, KREIFELTS, WILDGRUBER
brain areas differ in their activation during per-
ception of dynamic compared to static stimuli
(Kilts, Egan, Gideon, Ely, & Hoffman, 2003;
Sato, Kochiyama, Yoshikawa, Naito, & Matsu-
mura, 2004; Trautmann et al., 2009). Further-
more, brain areas activated during perception of
dynamic emotional stimuli differed between the
two genders (Kret, Pichon, Grèzes, & de
Gelder, 2011).
Therefore, short video sequences (resolution:
720 × 576 pixels, sound: 48 kHz, 16 bit, mean
duration = 965 ms; SD = 402 ms) were presented
by two unimodal conditions (auditory = A, visual
= V) and one bimodal condition (audio-visual =
AV). Stimulus material consisted of eight words
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014
spoken by professional actors (2 female,
2 male) in neutral, as well as in four different
emotional intonations (happy, alluring, angry,
disgusted) with a congruent facial expression.
The complete stimulus set contained 120 different
stimuli (8 words × 5 emotional categories × 3
modalities). Stimulus material was also balanced
for the gender of the displays.
The stimuli used in the present study were
taken from a set which was validated in previous
experiments (Kreifelts et al., 2007) with emotion
categorisation hit rates well above chance level.
Considering semantic valence, words were
selected and balanced according to ratings on a
9-point Self-Assessment Manikin scale (SAM;
Bradley & Lang, 1994) as assessed in a previous
study (Herbert, Kissler, Junghöfer, Peyk, & Rock-
stroh, 2006): Four words had a neutral connota-
tion (e.g., “Möbel” [furniture], mean valence =
5.2) and four words, in equal parts, had a positive
(e.g., “Freundschaft” [friendship], mean valence
rating = 8.7) or negative connotation (e.g., “Eiter”
[pus], mean valence rating = 1.9).
In addition to basic emotions including happi-
ness, anger and disgust alluring expressions were
also used in the stimulus set. Alluring stimuli were
generated by the actors’ nonverbal expression of
sexual interest in an inviting manner using a
seductive tone of voice. The resulting alluring
expressions were uniformly characterised by a soft
and sustained intonation in the lower vocal
frequency spectrum accompanied by a slowly
456 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3)
developing smile and a slight widening of the
palpebral fissure.
Experimental design and task
Visual and audio-visual stimuli were presented on
a 17-inch flat screen (LG FLATRON L1953PM)
with a resolution of 800 × 600 pixels. The size of
speaker’s face on the screen had approximately the
same size as a real face. In the auditory and audio-
visual conditions sound was conveyed through
headphones (Sennheiser, HD 515), with partici-
pants adjusting the volume individually. The
experiment took part in a quiet room where
participants were seated in a comfortable position
with their heads at a distance of ∼70 cm from the
screen. Stimuli presentation occurred in a rando-
mised order and the full set of stimuli was
presented twice with a five minute break between
the sessions.
Each trial was structured as follows: first, a
horizontal scale showing five emotional categories
was presented for one second (1; see Figure 1).
Emotional categories were numbered consecutively
from left to right with the appropriate number
indicated below the name of the respective cat-
egory. To avoid possible laterality effects the
positions of the emotional categories on the scale
were permuted resulting in a set of eight different
scales. These were changed between the partici-
pants. The neutral category was always positioned
centrally whereas the negative (angry, disgusted)
and positive (happy, alluring) categories were
placed contralaterally. With the aim of directing
the participants’ attention to the stimulus, a yellow
fixation cross and a pure tone (302 Hz) were
presented simultaneously for one second (2). Sub-
sequently, the stimulus was presented (3). After
stimulus offset the emotional categories scale was
shown again (4). As soon as an emotional category
was chosen, a short visual feedback (700 ms)
occurred (5). The response window (10 s duration)
was time-locked to the onset of the stimulus. The
trial duration ranged, depending on stimulus dura-
tion and response time, from 3.2 to 12.7 seconds.
Responses were given via horizontally adjoining
keys on the computer keyboard (number keys 1 to 5
 GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION RECOGNITION

Figure 1. Experimental design. Emotional stimuli were presented auditorily, visually and audio-visually and should be classified with
respect to the emotional category. Presentation occurred in randomised order and stimuli were balanced for emotional category and for
modality. A horizontal scale with five categories (“EROTIK” = alluring expression, “FREUDE” = happy expression, “NEUTRAL” =
neutral expression, “ÄRGER” = angry expression, “EKEL” = disgusted expression) was used. The order of the categories varied resulting in
eight scales which were balanced across participants. The scale was presented prior to and after stimulus presentation and participants received
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014

a visual feedback after response selection. The response window had a maximum duration of 10s beginning with the onset of the stimulus.
Depending on response time the trial duration ranged from 3.2 to 12.7 seconds. Copyright © 2012 by the American Psychological
Association. Reproduced (or Adapted) with permission. The official citation that should be used in referencing this material is
Lambrecht, L., Kreifelts, B., & Wildgruber, D. (2012). Age-related decrease in recognition of emotional facial and prosodic
expressions. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 12(3), 529–539. doi: 10.1037/a0026827. No further reproduction or distribution is
permitted without written permission from the American Psychological Association.

on the letter block). Participants were told to use
only their right index finger for response selection.
Furthermore, participants were instructed to clas-
sify the presented stimulus as quickly as possible
and based solely on non-verbal emotional cues
while ignoring potential emotional word content.
Participants were instructed to appraise the emo-
tional state of the presented person based on
emotional prosody and/or emotional facial expres-
sion and to select the emotional category that fitted
their impression best.
Before the main experiment participants were
familiarised with the experimental setting in a
short training session comprised of 15 stimuli,
which were not presented in the main experiment.
The experiment did not start before the particip-
ant fully understood the procedure and indicated
that she/he was ready to begin. In total partici-
pants judged 15 stimuli prior to and 240 stimuli
during the experiment.
Additional measures
Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SREIT)
Following the experiment the participants com-
pleted the SREIT, a self-reported trait measure of
emotional intelligence (Schutte et al., 1998). The
SREIT corresponds to Salovey and Mayer’s
framework of emotional intelligence (Salovey &
Mayer, 1990) implying appraisal, expression, regu-
lation, as well as, utilisation of emotions relating to
oneself and to others and it is also related to well-
being and measures of social skills with high test–
retest reliability (0.78; Schutte et al., 2001, 1998).
The SREIT consists of 33 items with each item
being rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly
agree, 5 = Strongly disagree) resulting in scores
ranging between 33 and 165. Higher scores indic-
ate a greater degree of trait emotional intelligence.
Three of the items were reverse-scored.
Mood and arousal
Prior to the experiment, participants rated their
arousal (1 = Very calm, 9 = Highly aroused) and their
mood (1 = Very bad, 9 = Very good) on a 9-point
Self-Assessment Manikin scale (Bradley &
Lang, 1994).
TAP
The subtest “Daueraufmerksamkeit” of the
“Testbatterie zur Aufmerksamkeitsprüfung” (TAP),

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3) 457

 LAMBRECHT, KREIFELTS, WILDGRUBER

version 2.1 (Vera Fimm, Psychologische Testsys-
teme, Herzogenrath) is a valid and reliable test to
assess the participants’ ability for sustained atten-
tion and working memory (Cronbach’s alpha
= .985, test–retest-reliability 0.81 after 25 days;
Zimmermann & Fimm, 2002). Response times
and mistakes (number of reactions without any
critical stimulus) were registered.
Please note that this data set was analysed with
the focus on age as well (Lambrecht, Kreifelts, &
Wildgruber, 2012).
RESULTS
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014
evaluated, and in the third ANOVA the unbiased
hit rate (Hu) was used. Partial eta-squared (ηp2)
served as a measure of effect size. All resulting
p-values were corrected for heterogeneous correla-
tions (Geisser & Greenhouse, 1958).
Raw hit rates
Significant main effects were observed for all four
factors of the ANOVA (Modality, Emotional
Category, Gender of the Participant, Gender
Display). Statistical measures of all main effects
and interactions are listed in Table 1. Subsequent
matched sample t-tests for male participants

Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS
Statistics 17.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
The individual hit rates were averaged across the
two sessions (repetitions) of the experiment. Three
four-factorial analyses of variance (ANOVAs) for
repeated measures with Modality (auditory, visual,
audio-visual), Emotional Category (happy, allur-
ing, neutral, angry, disgusted) and Gender of
Display as within-subject factors and Gender of
Participant as between-subject factor were per-
formed. In the first ANOVA raw hit rates were
analysed, in the second selection biases were
revealed a significant higher raw hit rate for
recognition of alluring stimuli in female as com-
pared to male displays, t(39) = 4.6, p < .01. Female
participants also showed significantly higher raw
hit rates for recognition of alluring stimuli in
female as compared to male displays, t(43) = 2.3,
p < .05. A t-test for independent samples did not
evidence a significant difference between men and
women in decoding alluringness from female
versus male displays, t(42) = 0.9, p = .38.
The means of the raw hit rates of the separate
emotional categories and of the average across all

Table 1. Main effects and interactions of the ANOVA for repeated measures for raw hit rates

Factor F(df, error) Partial η2

Mod F(1.6, 128.5) = 344.6** .808
Emo F(2.3, 273.5) = 26.8** .246
G (Display) F(1.0, 82.0) = 10.4** .113
G (Participant) F(1.0, 82.0) = 4.3* .050
Mod × Emo F(6.12, 501.7) = 172.6** .678
G (Display) × G (Participant) F(1.0, 82.0) = 0.066 .001
Mod × G (Participant) F(1.6, 128.5) = 7.5** .084
Emo × G (Participant) F(3.3, 273.5) = 0.12 .001
Mod × G (Display) F(1.9, 158.6) = 13.6** .143
Emo × G (Display) F(3.6, 297.6) = 33.8** .292
Mod × G (Participant) × G (Display) F(1.9, 158.6) = 0.206 .003
Emo × G (Participant) × G (Display) F(3.6, 297.6) = 1.6 .003
Mod × Emo × G (Participant) F(6.1, 501.7) = 0.70 .008
Mod × Emo × G (Display) F(6.7, 550.8) = 17.8** .179
Mod × Emo × G (Participant) × G (Display) F(6.7, 550.8) = 0.449 .005

Notes: Mod = modality; Emo = emotional category; G (Display) = Display’s gender; G (Participant) = Participant’s gender.
*p < .05; **p < .01.

458 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3)

 GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION RECOGNITION

emotional categories for men and women as well
as t-tests for the comparison of the raw hit rates
between the genders are displayed in the supple-
mental material (Table 6).
Gender specific response biases
We conducted a second repeated-measures
ANOVA with Modality, Emotional Category
and Gender Display as within-subject factors and
Gender of Participant as a between-subject factor
on the frequencies with which emotion categories
were selected. The ANOVA (Modality × Emo-
tional Category × Gender of the Participant ×
Gender Display) revealed a significant effect for
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comparisons (10). Subsequently, we investigated
if men and women differed in their emotion
confusion rates. Therefore, we used t-tests for
independent samples comparing the respective
frequency of choosing an incorrect emotional
category instead of the right one. Overall 20
confusions were compared between the two
genders.
In the subsequent t-tests only a single difference
remained significant after correction for multiple
comparisons. The difference between female and
male displays with regard to the difference between
the choices of alluring and neutral as an emotional
category was significant for the gender of the
participants, t(82) = −3.03, p < .05. Both men

the Emotional Category, a significant interaction
between Emotional Category and Modality, a
significant interaction between Emotional Cat-
egory and Gender Display, a significant interaction
between Emotional Category, Gender of the
Participant and Gender Display, as well as a
significant interaction between Emotional Cat-
egory and Modality and Gender Display. For the
statistical values see Table 2. In order to further
analyse the interaction between Gender of parti-
cipant, Gender Display and Emotional Category,
differences between the frequencies of choosing
each emotional category displayed by a male or
female model were calculated. Subsequently, these
differences were compared across the emotional
categories. These differences, which are technically
first order interaction terms, were compared
between the genders of the participants. P-values
were Bonferoni-corrected for the number of
and women chose alluring rather than neutral
when an actress presented the stimulus. For men
(mean difference ± standard error of the difference:
0.07 ± 0.01), this tendency was significantly larger
than it was for women (0.02 ± 0.01).
For a complete confusion matrix of stimulus
category and response selection (Table 7) as well
as for Bonferroni corrected comparisons of the
confusions (Table 8); see supplemental material.
Unbiased hit rates
In the third ANOVA, the unbiased hit rate (Hu)
was used. This is a precise measure that accounts
for false alarms and biases when using response
categories by multiplying the raw hit rate with the
positive predictive value (Wagner, 1993). It is
defined as “the joint probability that a stimulus
category is correctly identified given that it is

Table 2. Main effects and interactions of the ANOVA for repeated measures for the emotional categories

Factor F(df, error) Partial η2

Emo F(2.2, 181.4) = 33.4** .289
Emo × Mod F(4.8, 397.6) = 169.2** .674
Emo × G (Participant) F(2.2, 181.4) = 0.13 .022
Emo × G (Display) F(3.4, 280.8) = 32.9** .286
Emo × G (Participant) × G (Display) F(3.4, 280.8) = 2.7* .032
Mod × Emo × G (Participant) F(4.8, 397.6) = 1.4 .016
Mod × Emo × G (Display) F(6.0, 495.9) = 28.3** .257
Mod × Emo G (Participant) × G (Display) F(6.0, 495.9) = 1.7 .020

Notes: Mod = modality; Emo = emotional category; G (Display) = Display’s gender; G (Participant) = Participant’s gender. *p < .05; **p < .01.

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3) 459

 LAMBRECHT, KREIFELTS, WILDGRUBER

presented at all and that a response is correctly
used given that it is used at all”. So, with regard to
our experiment, it combines the sensitivity as well
as the specificity of the subjects’ ability to correctly
classify emotional stimuli. For the following stat-
istical analyses arc sine transformed unbiased hit
rates were used (Wagner, 1993).
The ANOVA (Modality × Emotional Cat-
egory × Gender of the Participant × Gender
Display) revealed a main effect of Modality,
Emotional Category and Gender Display, but no
main effect of Gender of the Participant. There
was a significant interaction between Modality
and Emotional Category, as well as a significant
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0.01 (A). The main effect of Emotional Category
was based on the following pattern: alluring
expressions (0.70 ± 0.01) were better recognised
than any other emotional category, t(83) ≥ 4.1, p <
.01, followed by happy (0.66 ± 0.01), t(83) ≥ 5.5,
p < .01 and then neutral (0.59 ± 0.01), angry (0.58
± 0.01) and disgusted expressions (0.58 ± 0.01)
with no significant differences between the last
three categories, t(83) ≤ 1.4, p ≥ .16.
The source of the interaction between Modality
and Emotional Category was investigated by com-
paring the differences of unbiased hit rates of the
three modalities between the emotional categories
(see Table 4 for the statistical values and Figure 2).

interaction between Modality and Gender of the
Participant. Furthermore, there was a significant
interaction between Modality and Gender Display
and a significant interaction between Emotional
Category and Gender Display, as well as between
Modality and Emotional Category and Gender
Display. For the statistical values see Table 3.
The main effect of Modality was due to higher
hit rates for AV than for either of the unimodal
conditions, t(83) ≥ 12.6, p < .01, d = 1.384 and to
higher hit rates for V than A, t(83) = 15.1, p < .01,
d = −1.646. Mean unbiased hit rates (± SEM)
were 0.76 ± 0.01 (AV), 0.65 ± 0.01 (V) and 0.45 ±
The recognition rates were higher for V than A
for every emotional category, t(83) ≥ 4.2, p < .01,
with the exception of alluring expressions, which
exhibited comparable recognition rates in both
unimodal conditions, t(83) = 0.7, p > .05. The
greatest difference was found for disgust as
compared to the remaining categories, followed
by happy, angry and neutral expressions. The
comparison between AV and A showed a similar
pattern with the greatest difference for disgusted
expressions. In contrast, the difference between
AV and V showed the greatest values for neutral
and alluring expressions.

Table 3. Main effects and interactions of the ANOVA for repeated measures for unbiased hit rates

Factor F(df, error) Partial η2

Mod F(1.9, 159.2) = 343.9** .807
Emo F(3.5, 283.4) = 39.5** .310
G (Display) F(1.0, 82.0) = 26.8** .246
G (Participant) F(1.0, 82.0) = 2.9 .034
Mod × Emo F(5.8, 474.5) = 54.1** .398
G (Display) × G (Participant) F(1.0, 82.0) = 0.001 .001
Mod × G (Participant) F(1.9, 159.2) = 5.8** .066
Emo × G (Participant) F(3.5, 283.4) = 2.2 .026
Mod × G (Display) F(1.9, 157.6) = 24.7** .232
Emo × G (Display) F(2.8, 228.5) = 10.0** .109
Mod × G (Participant) × G (Display) F(1.9, 157.6) = 0.01 .001
Emo × G (Participant) × G (Display) F(2.8, 228.5) = 0.22 .003
Mod × Emo × G (Participant) F(5.8, 474.5) = 0.74 .009
Mod × Emo × G (Display) F(6.2, 507.6) = 6.5** .074
Mod × Emo G (Participant) × G (Display) F(6.2, 507.6) = 0.553 .007

Notes: Mod = modality; Emo = emotional category; G (Display) = Display’s gender; G (Participant) = Participant’s gender. *p < .05; **p < .01.

460 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3)

 GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION RECOGNITION

Table 4. Differences in unbiased hit rate between the modalities: Comparisons between the emotional categories

Happy Alluring Neutral Angry

V–A t P t p t p t p
Happy — —
Alluring 13.2 <.01 — —
Neutral 10.4 <.01 –3.6 <.01 — —
Angry 6.7 <.01 –5.3 <.01 –2.9 <.01 — —
Disgusted –4.7 <.01 –18.3 <.01 –16.7 <.01 –16.1 <.01

Happy Alluring Neutral Angry

V–A t P t p t p t p

Happy — —
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Alluring 10.5 <.01 — —

Neutral 7.4 <.01 –4.2 <.01 — —
Angry 6.0 <.01 –4.0 <.01 –0.5 ns — —
Disgusted –4.0 <.01 –13.5 <.01 –9.2 <.01 –13.0 <.01

Happy Alluring Neutral Angry

V–A t P t p t p t p

Happy — —
Alluring –2.8 <.01 — —
Neutral –3.3 <.01 –0.6 ns — —
Angry –1.1 ns 1.1 ns 1.9 ns — —
Disgusted 0.3 ns 2.4 < .05 3.2 <.01 2.9 <.01

Notes: A = auditory; V = visual; AV = audio-visual modality. t = t-value; p = p-value, ns = not significant. Significant results are bold. The t-
and p-values refer to the mean difference between the unbiased hit rate for each emotional category for the two modalities.

The source of the interaction between Modality

Figure 2. Unbiased hit rates for separate emotional categories
and modalities. Error bars represent standard errors of the means.
and Gender participant was investigated by com-
paring the differences of unbiased hit rates of the
three modalities between male and female partici-
pants. Men showed greater differences in unbiased
hit rates between visually and auditory presented
stimuli than women, t(82) = 2.2, p < .05 (mean
difference ± standard error of the difference: men:
0.28 ± 0.02, women: 0.21 ± 0.02), as well as
between audio-visually and auditory stimuli, t(82)
= 2.8, p < .01 (men: 0.46 ± 0.03, women: 0.36 ±
0.02). The difference between unbiased hit rates
for audio-visual and visual stimuli, on the other
hand, was not significantly different between
men (0.18 ± 0.02) and women (0.16 ± 0.02;

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3) 461

 LAMBRECHT, KREIFELTS, WILDGRUBER
t(82) = 0.9, p = .350). T-tests for independent
samples indicated that women (mean ± SEM:
0.50 ± 0.02) had significantly higher unbiased hit
rates than men (0.40 ± 0.02) for auditory stimuli,
t(82) = 3.5, p = .001, d = 0.765, but not for visual, t
(82) = 1.2, p = .236, d = 0.262 (women: 0.66 ± 0.02,
men: 0.63 ± 0.02), or audio-visual stimuli, t(82) =
0.4, p = .681, d = 0.087 (women: 0.77 ± 0.02, men:
0.75 ± 0.02; Figure 3). For auditory stimuli 12% of
the variance in recognition rates (adjusted R2) could
be explained by gender, for visual stimuli the
explained variance amounted to 2% and for audio-
visual stimuli to 0.2%. Furthermore, we calculated
the minimum difference between the bimodal and
the maximum of both unimodal conditions AV –
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014
max (A, V) for the unbiased hit rate as a measure of
audio-visual integration. Higher values indicate
stronger integration effects. In order to compare
the effects of audio-visual integration between men
and women, t-tests for independent samples were
applied. The measure of audio-visual integration
(mean ± SEM) did not differ significantly between
men (0.12 ± 0.01) and women (0.10 ± 0.01; t(82) =
1.1, p = .270).
Gender differences with regard to Emotional
Category were analysed using t-tests for independ-
ent samples. They showed significant differences in
unbiased hit rates between women and men for
alluring, t(82) = 2.1, p = .039, d = 0.46 (mean ±
SEM: women: 0.73 ± 0.02, men: 0.67 ± 0.02),
happy, t(82) = 2.6, p = .013, d = 0.57 (women: 0.69 ±
0.02, men: 0.62 ± 0.02), and neutral expressions,
Figure 3. Unbiased hit rates for separate modalities and gender
groups. Error bars represent standard errors of the means. Note:
*p < .05.
462 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3)
t(82) = 2.1, p = .041, d = 0.46 (women: 0.62 ± 0.02,
men: 0.56 ± 0.02). No significant gender differences
were found for angry, t(82) = 1.44, p = .152, d =
0.315 (women: 0.60 ± 0.02, men: 0.56 ± 0.02) and
disgusted stimuli, t(82) = 0.80, p = .426,
d = 0.175 (women: 0.59 ± 0.02, men: 0.58 ± 0.02;
see Figure 4).
The difference in unbiased hit rates for alluring
stimuli of the display’s opposite and same gender
was not significant, for male, t(39) = −1.4, p = .157,
nor female participants, t(43) = 0.5, p = .59.
Mediation analysis
In order to identify potential mediators of gender
associated effects on emotion recognition the two
gender groups were compared with respect to age,
verbal IQ, education years, SREIT score, mean
hearing loss, as well as hearing loss of the separate
frequencies, vision loss, sustained attention, as well
as mood and arousal score, applying independent
samples t-tests. For parameters differing signifi-
cantly between the two gender groups, these
parameters were tested to see if they were linearly
associated with unbiased hit rate. To this end, we
used linear regression analyses.
For mediation analyses a multiple mediation
model by Preacher and Hayes (2008) was used to
account for the estimations of the separate medi-
ating variables as well as the combined effects.
Population parameters related to gender, as well as
unbiased hit rates, were included as potential
Figure 4. Unbiased hit rates for separate emotional categories
and gender groups. Error bars represent standard errors of the
means. Note: *p < .05.
 GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION RECOGNITION

mediators (M1, M2 … Mn), gender was defined as TAP

independent variable (X) and overall emotion
recognition performance was defined as a depend-
ent variable (Y). The total effect of X on Y was
calculated (c), as well as the direct effect of X on Y
(c′) and the indirect effect of X on Y, through the
potential mediators (a1b1, a1b2 … anbn) with the
effect of X on the potential mediators (a1, a2 …
an) and the effect of the potential mediators on Y
(b1, b2 … bn). The indirect effects were estimated
with the recommended method of bootstrapping
(5,000 resamples), which does not impose the
assumption of normality on the data. Results were
deemed significant if the 95% confidence intervals
(CI) of the effects did not include zero.
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Performance in the TAP measured by mistakes
made was correlated with emotion recognition
performance with regard to raw hit rates, r =
−.285, p < .01 as well as with regard to unbiased
hit rates, r = −.278, p < .05.
The regression of the overall emotion recogni-
tion performance on mood revealed no significant
relationship, β = −0.005, t(82) = 0.48, p = .96.
However, the remaining regression analyses
revealed significant relationships between emotion
recognition performance of auditory stimuli and
hearing loss for 4,000 Hz, β = −0.467, t(82) = 4.8,
p < .01, 6,000 Hz, β = −0.366, t(82) = 3.6, p < .01,

No significant differences between women and
men could be observed for age, education years,
verbal IQ, mean hearing and vision loss, SREIT
score, arousal score, and sustained attention. For
the mood score, the analysis indicated slightly
higher values for men. Means and standard
deviations for the listed factors groups are shown
in Table 5 for both genders. With regard to
hearing loss at the separate frequencies men
showed significant greater hearing loss than wo-
men at 4,000 Hz, t(82) = 2.4, p < .05, 6,000 Hz,
t(63) = 2.9, p < .01, and 8,000 Hz, t(71) = 2.9,
p < .01.
and 8,000 Hz, β = −0.454, t(82) = 4.6, p < .01.
A multiple mediation analysis with hearing loss
of the frequencies 4,000 to 8,000 Hz as potential
mediators of the effect of gender on emotion
recognition of auditory stimuli was conducted. It
confirmed a total effect of gender on emotion
recognition performance (c path), t = −3.55,
p < .01. Furthermore, the analysis indicated a
non-significant total effect of all mediators (ab
path; 95% CI: −.0687, −.0055). Analyses of the
separate frequencies of hearing loss as potential
mediators revealed that hearing loss for the
frequency of 8,000 Hz (95% CI: −.1079,

Table 5. Participant characteristics: Population parameters

Variable Women Men t(82) p-value

Mean (SD) Mean (SD)

Age 44.7 (13.2) 44.9 (14.1) 0.05 .961

Education years 17.8 (4.4) 18.4 (5.2) 0.59 .556
Verbal IQ 125.5 (13.5) 122.8 (14.5) 0.90 .370
Mean hearing loss (dB) 15.3 (7.2) 17.4 (7.6) 1.33 .189
Vision loss (%) 8.4 (4.1) 7.4 (5.7) 0.96 .339
SREIT score 123.4 (9.5) 125.0 (10.8) 0.70 .483
Arousal score 3.1 (1.8) 2.7 (1.6) 0.98 .330
Mood score 6.5 (1.2) 7.0 (1.1) 2.25 .027
TAP: mistakes 3.2 (5.4) 3.7 (4.3) 0.44 .662
TAP: reaction time (ms) 653 (180) 616 (170) 0.96 .338

Notes: SD = standard deviation; Verbal IQ = verbal intelligence, measured by MWT-B; SREIT = self-report emotional intelligence test;
arousal and mood scores were rated by each participant and ranged from 1 to 10 with higher arousal scores indicating greater arousal and
higher mood scores indicating better mood; TAP = “Testbatterie zur Aufmerksamkeitsprüfung” = battery of tests investigating attention,
subtest “Daueraufmerksamkeit” = sustained attention. The p-values are two-tailed.

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3) 463

 LAMBRECHT, KREIFELTS, WILDGRUBER
−.0030), but not of 6,000 Hz (95% CI: −.0053,
−.0971) and 4,000 Hz (95% CI: −.0683, −.0028),
had a significant mediating influence on emotion
recognition performance of auditory stimuli. After
removing the influence of hearing loss on the
relationship between gender and emotion recog-
nition the direct effect was still significant
(c′ path), t = −2.67, p < .05.
DISCUSSION
The present study confirmed that women are more
accurate in the recognition of emotional prosody.
In contrast to previous observations of gender
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differences in recognition accuracy of visually
(Biehl et al., 1997; Hall & Matsumoto, 2004;
McClure, 2000) and audio-visually (Collignon
et al., 2010; Hall, 1978) presented emotional
expressions, however, no significant gender-spe-
cific effects could be demonstrated during percep-
tion of visual and audio-visual stimuli in our study.
As suggested by Hall’s review (1978), which
included 75 studies dating back to 1923 and
featuring a variety of different stimuli, methodical
differences could be responsible for diverging
results. The study of Collignon et al. (2010) as
well as the present study, on the other hand, differ
with regard to the emotional categories used: only
one emotional category (disgust) was employed in
both studies. Although in our study gender differ-
ences were only significant for auditory stimuli,
each experimental condition displayed a trend for
women to be more accurate in recognising emo-
tions. Presumably, a general advantage in emotion
recognition for women has been masked by ceiling
effects for recognition of visual and audio-visual
stimuli, while auditory stimuli were the most
difficult to recognise. Additionally, as sample sizes
influence statistical sensitivity, it is possible that in
a larger sample also a significant effect of gender on
recognition of visual and audio-visual stimuli
would have been observed.
Taking into account the impact of emotion
recognition for evolutionary biology, might be
helpful in interpreting the observed female advant-
age in recognition of emotions in the voice.
464 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3)
Females, being mainly responsible for child rear-
ing in most parts of the world generally rely on
correct recognition of nonverbal emotional signals
until infants learn to speak. This relation has
already been described by Babchuk, Hames, and
Thompson (1985) as “The primary caretaker
hypothesis”. As our female ancestors had to take
care of their household chores while simulta-
neously paying attention to their infants without
permanent visual contact recognition of emotional
signals from the voice might be considered to be
of vital importance for their well-being. Thus,
from an evolutionary point of view children whose
mothers had highly developed abilities in emotion
recognition may have had a selection advantage. A
gender-specific heredity of this attribute might
possibly be mediated by epigenetic mechanisms
affecting the expression of genes without changing
the DNA per se, as recently observed in the
contexts of other types of gender-specific behavi-
our (Champagne, 2013; Saavedra-Rodríguez &
Feig, 2013). Alternatively it can be assumed, that
accuracy of emotion recognition of voices is better
in women than in men due a higher level of
experience caused by their more time intense role
in child care. More research is needed, however, to
further explore these considerations.
Results regarding the distinct emotional cat-
egories, indicate that women are more accurate in
recognising positive and neutral categories,
whereas no gender differences were found for
anger and disgust. As disgust scarcely appears in
our daily life (Myrtek, Aschenbrenner, & Brügner,
2005), it is possible that women indeed focus
more strongly on emotional signals than men, but
cannot develop a recognition advantage for disgust
as they are rarely confronted with this emotion.
The absence of gender difference for the recogni-
tion of anger is supported by an earlier study
(Bonebright et al., 1996).
Furthermore, our results evidenced no signific-
ant interaction between gender of participant and
gender of model for both raw and unbiased hit
rates, confirming results from Hall (1978). How-
ever, with regard to alluring stimuli, we found
higher hit rates and a selection bias for male and
female participants, but only if stimuli were

presented by an actress. These findings demon-
strate an emotion-specific effect rather than a
general-interaction effect of the gender of the
participant and gender of the display. As the
inclusion of alluring stimuli is novel, comparisons
to other studies cannot be drawn yet.
This bias to choose alluring was observed to a
greater degree in men than women. As, based on
unbiased hit rates, no difference in recognition
accuracy of alluring stimuli between female and
male displays occurred one can assume that there
is a general tendency in men to select this category
more often for female displays but there is no
evidence for a gender-specific increase in recogni-
tion performance in male subjects. Moreover, it is
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interesting to note that female participants also
had higher raw hit rates in recognition of alluring
stimuli portrayed by a female speaker. From an
evolutionary point of view, for example in assuring
the reproduction of offspring, different signals
might have been relevant in our ancestors depend-
ing on the gender of the sender: Whereas for
women alluring behaviour prevailed, men might
have been more likely to be successful by signalling
strength. The tendency for choosing alluring in
females was greater for male than for female
participants. This may be the result of an expecta-
tion bias in men, expecting alluring signals from
women rather than from men. Here, ubiquitous
awareness of gender stereotypes could play a role.
Alternatively, the men’s bias in categorising
female stimuli as alluring may reflect their aversion
to appearing to exhibit homosexual attraction.
Mediation analysis revealed that the female
advantage for recognition of auditory emotional
stimuli is indeed partially conveyed by a more
pronounced hearing loss of male participants at the
8,000 Hz frequency. However, the gender effect is
not fully explained by the influence of this basic
factor. Thus, other reasons have to be considered
for the gender difference in accuracy of emotion
recognition. Several factors with a potential causal
relationship with the observed gender difference
could be found in differences in brain structure
(Cahill, 2006), in cerebral activation during emo-
tion perception (Kret et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2002;
Rymarczyk & Grabowska, 2007) or in hormonal
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION RECOGNITION
status between women and men, for example, sex
hormone levels have an impact on facial emotion
recognition (Guapo et al., 2009).
Finally, our results suggest that nonverbal
emotional expressions are better recognised on
the basis of bimodal rather than unimodal pre-
sentation and, second, that emotions are better
recognised from facial expressions than from
emotional prosody. This is in line with earlier
findings (Collignon et al., 2008, 2010; Hawk
et al., 2009; Kreifelts et al., 2007).
When interpreting the results on basis of the
overall recognition accuracy, one has to bear in
mind that the emotions differ in their recognition
pattern between modalities: Most emotional
expressions are better recognised from facial than
from vocal cues (disgusted, happy, angry, neutral),
but “alluring” was the only category of expressions
without visual recognition advantage. As the
implication of alluring expressions in an emotion
recognition paradigm is very novel, any interpreta-
tions regarding the reason for this characteristic of
alluring expressions have to be treated as tentative.
It seems worthwhile, though, to consider the
setting and situations in which alluring cues are
typically used as a potential cause of the observed
effect: Most often these are situations where
individuals are close to each other with optimal
transmission conditions for vocal cues.
Identification rates for recognition of disgust
and happiness, on the other hand, evidence a very
strong visual recognition advantage, which is in
line with previous studies on recognition of vocal
and facial cues expressing basic emotional states
(Banse & Scherer, 1996; Calvo & Lundqvist,
2008; Castro & Lima, 2010; Dyck et al., 2008;
Kirouac & Doré, 1985; Leppänen & Hietanen,
2004; Leppänen, Tenhunen, & Hietanen, 2003;
Williams et al., 2009). Another driving factor for
the interaction effect between sensory modality
and type of emotional expression was the relatively
smaller difference between recognition rates for
visual and audio-visual stimulation in those emo-
tional categories with particular high recognition
rates under visual stimulation (disgust, happiness).
Here, ceiling effects have to be discussed as a
potential cause of this effect.
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (3) 465
 LAMBRECHT, KREIFELTS, WILDGRUBER
Limitations and perspectives
In the present investigation emotion recognition
was based on an explicit emotion-processing task.
Since, in most situations, processing of nonverbal
emotional signals occurs in an automatic, implicit
manner it might prove very valuable to include
implicit emotion processing tasks with regard to
facial and prosodic cues in future studies. These
could further extend current knowledge (Williams
et al., 2009) of implicit processing of emotional
cues. Furthermore, the combination of biological
measures (e.g., functional magnetic resonance
imaging, measures of sexual hormonal levels) and
psychosocial measures (e.g., frequency of appear-
Downloaded by [University of Basel] at 09:30 21 May 2014
ance of each emotion in daily life, personality
traits) within a study design comprising emotion
presentation in several sensory modalities could
help to assess gender differences in emotion
recognition in an even more differentiated man-
ner. Finally, as the present study evidenced gender
differences in emotion recognition in the auditory,
but not the visual, modality, it would be worth-
while to investigate how these differences relate to
general face and voice recognition abilities among
men and women. Furthermore, the application of
visual stimuli with a higher degree of categorisa-
tion difficulty in future studies may help to avoid
confounding ceiling effects and enhance sensitivity
to gender differences in emotion recognition.
Manuscript received 26 February
Revised manuscript received 17 July
Manuscript accepted 19 August
First published online 21 October
Supplementary material
Supplementary material (Tables 6–8) is available via
the ‘Supplementary’ tab on the article’s online page
(http://dx.doi.org.10.1080/02699931.2013.837378).
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