Correlations among salivary testosterone, mood, and selective attention tothreat in humans

An experiment was designed to investigate the relation among salivary testo sterone, mood, and selective attention to threat. The participant group con sisted of 32 nonclinical subjects (16 men and 16 women). Individuals comple ted the Profile Of Mood States (POMS) and performed a pictorial emotional S troop task measuring selective attention to angry faces. Anticipating a tim e lag between testosterone (as measured in saliva) and cognitive emotional behavior, multiple time-coursed saliva samples were taken preceding the ass essment of questionnaire and task for every subject. In both sexes, salivar y testosterone was significantly related to mood (i.e., anger and tension) and selective attention to angry faces when saliva samples were taken 6 h b efore questionnaire and task assessment. Research on the relation between t estosterone and human behavior might benefit by taking into account time la gs between the behavioral manifestations and the continuously changing leve ls of testosterone. (C) 1999 Academic Press.