Discrimination of Tone Durations across the Menstrual Cycle

Abstract

Discrimination of tone duration was studied as a function of menstrual cycle phase. In three phases of their menstrual cycle, 12 women compared the durations of 64 pairs of tones. They discriminated the tone durations least well in the premenstrual phase and tended to speed up their responding over sessions. In contrast, a control group of 12 men tended to improve their performance over sessions while response time remained constant.