The DOI matches its Crossref record; 247 of the 249 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Sex differences in the ability to recognise non-verbal displays of emotion: A meta-analysis
Abstract
The present study aimed to quantify the magnitude of sex differences in humans' ability to accurately recognise non-verbal emotional displays. Studies of relevance were those that required explicit labelling of discrete emotions presented in the visual and/or auditory modality. A final set of 551 effect sizes from 215 samples was included in a multilevel meta-analysis. The results showed a small overall advantage in favour of females on emotion recognition tasks (d=0.19). However, the magnitude of that sex difference was moderated by several factors, namely specific emotion, emotion type (negative, positive), sex of the actor, sensory modality (visual, audio, audio-visual) and age of the participants. Method of presentation (computer, slides, print, etc.), type of measurement (response time, accuracy) and year of publication did not significantly contribute to variance in effect sizes. These findings are discussed in the context of social and biological explanations of sex differences in emotion recognition.
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“Considering the results from both the old analyses and new analyses together, there were sex differences indicating that females relative to males are more proficient in recognizing emotions (SMDs = 0.22–0.30; Merten, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014).”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Thompson & Voyer, 2014
In the citing paper
“for Emotion recognition, the studies in the old analyses and new analyses (Merten, 2005; Thompson & Voyer, 2014) indicated that the sex differences favoring females are larger in countries with higher living conditions, but the evidence is weak.”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Thompson & Voyer, 2014
In the citing paper
“women perform better than men in tasks measuring face memory [1] and emotion recognition [2]”
From Effects of sex and gonadectomy on social investigation and social recognition in mice (2015) · cites this paper as [2]
Citations
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Sorted by citations
Sex differences in anxiety and depression clinical perspectives
Altemus, M., Sarvaiya, N., & Neill Epperson, C. (2014) · Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2014.05.004 · Cited by 1,413
“For example, adaptive behavioral differences in terms of childrearing seem to include, in females, superior social cognition and capacity for attunement with others, important for cognitive and social development of offspring (Halpern, 2007; Gur et al., 2012; Thompson and Voyer, 2014).”
BackgroundEmpathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior
Christov-Moore, L., Simpson, E. A., Coudé, G., Grigaityte, K., Iacoboni, M., & Ferrari, P. F. (2014) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.09.001 · Cited by 1,137
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Metadata
- Authors
- Thompson, A. E., & Voyer, D.
- Affiliations
- University of New Brunswick (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Voyer, Daniel
- Venue
- Cognition and Emotion
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2014-01-08
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1164-1195
- ISSN
- 0269-9931 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-0600
- OpenAlex
- W2023112595
- Cited by
- 476
- References
- 249
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 49 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 79 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 33 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 2.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cognition & Emotion (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Keywords
- sex differences, emotion recognition, facial expressions, vocal emotion, sensory modalities, age effects
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Child, Emotions, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Male, Photic Stimulation, Sex Characteristics, Recognition, Psychology, Young Adult
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