Sex and menstrual cycle influences on three aspects of attention

摘要

Abstract Sex differences and menstrual cycle influences have been investigated in a variety of cognitive abilities, but results regarding attention are comparably sparse. In the present study, 35 men and 32 naturally cycling women completed three attention tasks, which are commonly used in neuropsychological assessment situations. All participants completed two sessions, which were time-locked to the follicular (low progesterone) and luteal cycle phase (high progesterone) in women. The results reveal higher operation speed during sustained attention in men, but no sex differences in selected and divided attention. Menstrual cycle influences were observed on accuracy in all three tasks. During divided and sustained attention, for which a male advantage was previously reported, accuracy was higher during the early follicular compared to the mid-luteal cycle phase. Furthermore, during selected and sustained attention the learning effect from the first to the second test session was higher in women who started the experiment in their luteal cycle phase. These results suggest a possible role of progesterone in modulating the ability to focus on certain stimulus aspects, while inhibiting others and to sustain attention over a longer period of time. Highlights ? Men show higher processing speed than women during sustained attention. ? Men and women do not differ in performance during selected attention. ? Sustained and divided attention performance decreases during the luteal cycle phase. ? Learning effects on attention tasks are higher if first trained during the luteal cycle phase. ]]>