Estrogen predicts multimodal emotion recognition accuracy across the menstrual cycle

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Endocrinology

Background:

• Sex hormones, particularly estrogen, are hypothesized to affect emotion recognition across the menstrual cycle.
• Previous research presents inconsistent findings regarding emotion recognition accuracy during different menstrual cycle phases.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how emotion recognition accuracy differs between the follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle.
• To examine the relationship between estrogen (estradiol) and progesterone levels and emotion recognition accuracy.
• To explore the complex role of within-person and between-person hormone variations.

Main Methods:

• A repeated measures design was employed with 63 naturally cycling women.
• Emotion recognition was assessed using tasks involving video stimuli and non-linguistic vocalizations across visual, auditory, and multimodal presentations.
• Multilevel models were used to analyze the data, considering both within-person and between-person hormone variations.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in emotion recognition accuracy were found between the follicular and luteal phases.
• Estrogen levels showed a significant relationship with accuracy: higher between-person estrogen predicted greater accuracy, while higher within-person estrogen predicted lower accuracy.
• Within-person estrogen interacted with the menstrual cycle phase, showing a quadratic relationship with accuracy, particularly in the multimodal task.

Conclusions:

• The findings suggest a nuanced role for estrogen in emotion recognition, where general levels and temporary fluctuations have opposing effects.
• The differential impact of within- and between-person hormone levels may reconcile inconsistencies in prior research on menstrual cycle effects on emotion recognition.
• Further research is needed to fully elucidate the complex interplay between sex hormones and emotional processing.