Bayliss Andrew P, di Pellegrino Giuseppe, Tipper Steven P
School of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Wales, Bangor, LL57 2AS, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol A. 2005 May;58(4):631-50. doi: 10.1080/02724980443000124.
Observing a face with averted eyes results in a reflexive shift of attention to the gazed-at location. Here we present results that show that this effect is weaker in males than in females (Experiment 1). This result is predicted by the 'extreme male brain' theory of autism (Baron-Cohen, 2003), which suggests that males in the normal population should display more autism-like traits than females (e.g., poor joint attention). Indeed, participants' scores on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Stott, Bolton, & Goodyear, 2001) negatively correlated with cueing magnitude. Furthermore, exogenous orienting did not differ between the sexes in two peripheral cueing experiments (Experiments 2a and 2b). However, a final experiment showed that using nonpredictive arrows instead of eyes as a central cue also revealed a large gender difference. This demonstrates that reduced orienting from central cues in males generalizes beyond gaze cues. These results show that while peripheral cueing is equivalent in the male and female brains, the attention systems of the two sexes treat noninformative symbolic cues very differently.
观察一张眼睛看向别处的脸会导致注意力自动转移到被注视的位置。在此，我们展示的结果表明，这种效应在男性中比在女性中更弱（实验1）。这一结果与自闭症的“极端男性大脑”理论（巴伦 - 科恩，2003年）预测相符，该理论认为正常人群中的男性应比女性表现出更多类似自闭症的特征（例如，联合注意力差）。确实，参与者在自闭症谱系商数测试（巴伦 - 科恩、惠尔赖特、斯托特、博尔顿和古德伊尔，2001年）中的得分与提示强度呈负相关。此外，在两个外周提示实验（实验2a和2b）中，外源性定向在性别之间没有差异。然而，最后一个实验表明，使用非预测性箭头而非眼睛作为中央提示时，也显示出很大的性别差异。这表明男性对中央提示的定向减少不仅仅局限于注视提示。这些结果表明，虽然外周提示在男性和女性大脑中是等效的，但两性的注意力系统对无信息的符号提示的处理方式非常不同。
