Gender Differences in Posture Effects on Cognition

Abstract

To investigate the effects of and body posture on reaction time, 28 healthy university students (14 male and 14 female) served as subjects performing four-choice visual reaction tasks while sitting and standing, with intersession practice and a complete duplication of the study on a second day. Intratask manipulations were stimulus degradation, stimulus-response compatibility, and the response-stimulus interval (foreperiod uncertainty). Results showed main effects for all intratask variables and practice with interactions related to gender, posture, and degradation. Significant gender differences in the effects of posture and degradation were such that females had a slight advantage over males on tasks which emphasize early stages of processing. In general, it is concluded that the large disparity of findings within the gender-related psychomotor literature may be largely a function of methodological differences between studies. This investigation showed that experimental findings may vary according to the particular task used and the circumstances under which it was performed.