School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland, UK.
Front Neuroendocrinol. 2013 Oct;34(4):315-28. doi: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2013.07.009. Epub 2013 Aug 26.
Steroid sex hormones are responsible for some of the differences between men and women. In this article, I review evidence that steroid sex hormones impact on visual processing. Given prominent sex-differences, I focus on three topics for sex hormone effects for which there is most research available: 1. Preference and mate choice, 2. Emotion and recognition, and 3. Cerebral/perceptual asymmetries and visual-spatial abilities. For each topic, researchers have examined sex hormones and visual processing using various methods. I review indirect evidence addressing variation according to: menstrual cycle phase, pregnancy, puberty, and menopause. I further address studies of variation in testosterone and a measure of prenatal testosterone, 2D:4D, on visual processing. The most conclusive evidence, however, comes from experiments. Studies in which hormones are administrated are discussed. Overall, many studies demonstrate that sex steroids are associated with visual processing. However, findings are sometimes inconsistent, differences in methodology make strong comparisons between studies difficult, and we generally know more about activational than organizational effects.
甾体性激素是导致男性和女性之间某些差异的原因之一。在本文中，我回顾了证据表明甾体性激素会影响视觉处理。鉴于明显的性别差异，我专注于有最多研究可用的三个主题：1. 偏好和配偶选择，2. 情绪和识别，以及 3. 大脑/感知不对称和视觉空间能力。对于每个主题，研究人员都使用各种方法研究了性激素和视觉处理之间的关系。我回顾了根据以下因素变化的间接证据：月经周期阶段、怀孕、青春期和绝经期。我进一步探讨了睾酮和一种衡量产前睾酮的指标 2D:4D 对视觉处理的影响。然而，最确凿的证据来自实验。讨论了给予激素的实验研究。总的来说，许多研究表明性激素与视觉处理有关。然而，研究结果有时并不一致，研究方法的差异使得很难对研究进行强有力的比较，而且我们通常更了解激活效应而不是组织效应。
