Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Muesmattstrasse 45, 3000, Bern 9, Switzerland.
Arch Sex Behav. 2012 Jun;41(3):583-90. doi: 10.1007/s10508-011-9880-8. Epub 2011 Dec 20.
The present study was designed to elucidate sex-related differences in two basic auditory and one basic visual aspect of sensory functioning, namely sensory discrimination of pitch, loudness, and brightness. Although these three aspects of sensory functioning are of vital importance in everyday life, little is known about whether men and women differ from each other in these sensory functions. Participants were 100 male and 100 female volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 30 years. Since sensory sensitivity may be positively related to individual levels of intelligence and musical experience, measures of psychometric intelligence and musical background were also obtained. Reliably better performance for men compared to women was found for pitch and loudness, but not for brightness discrimination. Furthermore, performance on loudness discrimination was positively related to psychometric intelligence, while pitch discrimination was positively related to both psychometric intelligence and levels of musical training. Additional regression analyses revealed that each of three predictor variables (sex, psychometric intelligence, and musical training) accounted for a statistically significant portion of unique variance in pitch discrimination. With regard to loudness discrimination, regression analysis yielded a statistically significant portion of unique variance for sex as a predictor variable, whereas psychometric intelligence just failed to reach statistical significance. The potential influence of sex hormones on sex-related differences in sensory functions is discussed.
本研究旨在阐明两种基本听觉和一种基本视觉感官功能方面的性别差异，即音高、响度和亮度的感觉辨别。尽管这些感官功能的三个方面在日常生活中至关重要，但对于男性和女性在这些感官功能上是否存在差异，人们知之甚少。参与者为 100 名年龄在 18 至 30 岁之间的男性和 100 名女性志愿者。由于感官敏感性可能与个体智力和音乐经验水平呈正相关，因此还获得了心理测量智力和音乐背景方面的测量。在音高和响度辨别方面，男性的表现明显优于女性，但在亮度辨别方面则不然。此外，响度辨别能力与心理测量智力呈正相关，而音高辨别能力与心理测量智力和音乐训练水平均呈正相关。进一步的回归分析表明，三个预测变量（性别、心理测量智力和音乐训练）中的每一个都解释了音高辨别中具有统计学意义的独特差异部分。对于响度辨别，回归分析显示性别作为预测变量具有统计学意义的独特差异部分，而心理测量智力则刚好未达到统计学意义。讨论了性激素对感官功能性别差异的潜在影响。
