Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 10, 2026
Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control
Published on: July 5, 2015
Gender differences associated with orienting attentional networks in healthy subjects
Gang Liu1, Pan-Pan Hu, Jin Fan
1Department of Neurology, First Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui 230022, China.
Background:
Selective attention is considered one of the main components of cognitive functioning. A number of studies have demonstrated gender differences in cognition. This study aimed to investigate the gender differences in selective attention in healthy subjects.
Methods:
The present experiment examined the gender differences associated with the efficiency of three attentional networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control attention in 73 healthy subjects (38 males). All participants performed a modified version of the Attention Network Test (ANT).
Results:
Females had higher orienting scores than males (t = 2.172, P < 0.05). Specifically, females were faster at covert orienting of attention to a spatially cued location. There were no gender differences between males and females in alerting (t = 0.813, P > 0.05) and executive control (t = 0.945, P > 0.05) attention networks.
Conclusions:
There was a significant gender difference between males and females associated with the orienting network. Enhanced orienting attention in females may function to motivate females to direct their attention to a spatially cued location.
