Physiological evidence of gender differences in word recognition: a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study

Magnetic field recordings were made in order to describe brain processes du ring a word recognition experiment. We investigated 26 healthy young subjec ts (14 females) and focused on gender differences related to recognition pe rformance and brain activity. From about 200 ms to 350 ms after word onset the event-related field (ERF) patterns differed significantly between women and men, although the mean recognition performances did not. Differences w ere due to different strengths of activation as well as due to the involvem ent of different neural structures as underlined with statistical analysis. We interpret that our physiological findings demonstrate that different me ntal strategies are used for correct word recognition in the brains of wome n and men as assessed with magnetoencephalography (MEG). Our data might be linked to previous findings about the hemispheric asymmetry in male subject s (left lateralized) compared to women in whom both hemispheres seem to be equally involved in word processing. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rig hts reserved.