Facial Expression of Pain: Sex Differences in the Discrimination of Varying Intensities

It has been proposed that women are better than men at recognizing emotions and pain experienced by others. They have also been shown to be more sensitive to variations in pain expressions. The objective of the present study was to explore the perceptual basis of these sexual differences by comparin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Emotion (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2023-08, Vol.23 (5), p.1254-1266
Main Authors: Plouffe-Demers, Marie-Pier, Saumure, Camille, Fiset, Daniel, Cormier, Stéphanie, Blais, Caroline
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Emotions
Face
Face Perception
Facial Expression
Facial Expressions
Female
Human
Human Sex Differences
Humans
Male
Pain
Perceptual Discrimination
Sex Characteristics
Sex Discrimination
Stimulus Intensity
Visual Perception
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Summary:It has been proposed that women are better than men at recognizing emotions and pain experienced by others. They have also been shown to be more sensitive to variations in pain expressions. The objective of the present study was to explore the perceptual basis of these sexual differences by comparing the visual information used by men and women to discriminate between different intensities of pain facial expressions. Using the data-driven Bubbles method, we were able to corroborate the woman advantage in the discrimination of pain intensities that did not appear to be explained by variations in empathic tendencies. In terms of visual strategies, our results do not indicate any qualitative differences in the facial regions used by men and women. However, they suggest that women rely on larger regions of the face that seems to completely mediate their advantage. This utilization of larger clusters could indicate either that women integrate simultaneously and more efficiently information coming from different areas of the face or that they are more flexible in the utilization of the information present in these clusters. Women would then opt for a more holistic or flexible processing of the facial information, while men would rely on a specific yet rigid integration strategy.
ISSN:1528-3542
1931-1516
DOI:10.1037/emo0001156