Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39972397›Full record

ArticleBiology of sex differences2025

Own-gender bias in facial feature recognition yields sex differences in holistic face processing.

Tobias Hausinger, Björn Probst, Stefan Hawelka, Belinda Pletzer

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Biology of sex differences, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Tobias HausingerCentre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, 5020, Salzburg, Austria. tobias.hausinger@plus.ac.at.
Björn ProbstDepartment of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020, Salzburg, Austria.
Stefan HawelkaCentre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, 5020, Salzburg, Austria.
Belinda PletzerCentre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, 5020, Salzburg, Austria.

Funding

Austrian Science Fund W1233-B
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

introductionFemale observers in their luteal cycle phase exhibit a bias towards a detail-oriented rather than global visuospatial processing style that is well-documented across cognitive domains such as pattern recognition, navigation, and object location memory. Holistic face processing involves an integration of global patterns and local parts into a cohesive percept and might thus be susceptible to the influence of sex and cycle-related processing styles. This study aims to investigate potential sex differences in the part-whole effect as a measure a of holistic face processing and explores possible relationships with sex hormone levels.

methods147 participants (74 male, 51 luteal, 22 non-luteal) performed a part-whole face recognition task while being controlled for cycle phase and sex hormone status. Eye tracking was used for fixation control and recording of fixation patterns.

resultsWe found significant sex differences in the part-whole effect between male and luteal phase female participants. In particular, this sex difference was based on luteal phase participants exhibiting higher face part recognition accuracy than male participants. This advantage was exclusively observed for stimulus faces of women. Exploratory analyses further suggest a similar advantage of luteal compared to non-luteal participants, but no significant difference between non-luteal and male participants. Furthermore, testosterone emerged as a possible mediator for the observed sex differences.

conclusionOur results suggest a possible modulation of face encoding and/or recognition by sex and hormone status. Moreover, the established own-gender bias in face recognition, that is, female advantage in recognition of faces of the same gender might be based on more accurate representations of face-parts.

Indexed as

Facial RecognitionSex CharacteristicsAdolescentAdultFemaleHumansLuteal PhaseMaleSexismYoung Adult

Identifiers

PMID39972397
PMCPMC11841357

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