Evidence of rapid gender processing revealed by ERSP

In this research, we used EEG signals to analyze gender processing with the ERSP method. Not only facial images, but also images of clothing and shoes, were used. We applied the ICA method to obtain a gender-related component which appeared quite significant in the majority of electrode sites for the occipital lobe. This showed differences of energy between the two genders, even for the clothing and shoe images. Our results indicate that not only facial gender processing, but also a gender discrimination task for objects influences the energy of EEGs from 50 ms after the onset of stimuli at all frequencies, especially lower band. This provides convincing evidence for rapidity of gender processing.