Gender differences in the recognition of laterally presented affective nouns

Evidence suggests that the cerebral hemispheres are differentially specialised for the processing of positively and negatively valenced affective material. The present study examined the consequences of this for the availability in each hemisphere of lexical entries related to positive, neutral, and negative affect. A threshold recognition task was used to assess the identification of positive, neutral, and negative emotionally toned nouns projected to the right or left visual field. A strong lateral asymmetry in favour of right visual field recognition of nouns was observed. Whereas women showed no evidence of changes in lateral asymmetry as a function of affect, lateral asymmetry in men was significantly greater for positive nouns. This finding points to a difference in the representation of affective material in the left and right lexicons of the male brain, and provides support for the notion that gender may be one of the keys to reconciling some of the contradictory findings that characterise this area of research.     

PERCEPTIONS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Two hundred eight faculty members and 314 graduate students located at a West Coast university were presented with 24 brief situations describing five types of sexual harassment in a university setting: gender harassment, seductive behavior, sexual bribery, sexual coercion, and sexual imposition or assault. The participants were randomly assigned to rate the situations under one of four instructional conditions that described combinations of the level of the student and authority of the faculty portrayed in the brief vignettes. Women were more likely than neither the target student's level (i.e., graduate or undergraduate) nor the degree of the faculty member's power over her affected the participants' ratings of the situations. The results indicated that, with the exception of the more coercive and intrusive behaviors, considerable uncertainty may still exist about what constitutes sexual harassment within the university setting.     

Attentional set in pure- versus mixed-lists in a dichotic listening paradigm

An experiment was designed to assess the contribution of attentional set to performance on a forced choice recognition task in dichotic listening. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: speech sounds composed of stop consonants, emotional nonspeech sounds, or a random combination of both. In the groups exposed to a single class of stimuli (pure-list), a REA (right ear advantage) emerged for the speech sounds, and a LE (left ear advantage) for the nonspeech sounds. Under mixed conditions using both classes of stimuli, no significant ear advantage was apparent, either globally or individually for the speech and nonspeech sounds. However, performance was more accurate for the left ear on nonspeech sounds and for the right ear for speech sounds, regardless of pure versus mixed placement. The results suggest that under divided attention conditions, attentional set influences the direction of the laterality effect.