Date of Award

2010

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Department

Psychology

Keywords

Psychology, Cognitive.

Supervisor

Abeare, Christopher (Psychology)

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

Gender can influence the lateralization of emotional processing. Specifically, women exhibit more bilateral activation while men are more lateralized. This study sought to investigate the influence of gender on emotional processing. The lateralized Emotional Stroop Task was used to present 50 male and female participants with positive, negative, and neutral words in one of four different colours to the right visual field or the left visual field. Participants had to indicate the colour that each word was printed in. Participants were more accurate at indicating the colour of negative words relative to other words. There were no significant main effects for reaction time latencies. The results suggest that there are no laterality differences with respect to how men and women process emotional words. The findings also question the usefulness of the lateralized EST as a measure of automatic emotional processing in normals.

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