Gender differences in pre-attentive change detection for visual but not auditory stimuli

•We compared pre-attentive processing in males and females across visual and auditory modalities.•No significant gender differences were observed for auditory MMN (aMMN) amplitude, but visual MMN (vMMN) amplitude was higher in males than females.•Increment duration vMMN could be a good indicator for pre-attentive processing.

ObjectiveDespite ongoing debate about gender differences in pre-attention processes, little is known about gender effects on change detection for auditory and visual stimuli. We explored gender differences in change detection while processing duration information in auditory and visual modalities.MethodWe investigated pre-attentive processing of duration information using a deviant-standard reverse oddball paradigm (50 ms/150 ms) for auditory and visual mismatch negativity (aMMN and vMMN) in males and females (n = 21/group).ResultIn the auditory modality, decrement and increment aMMN were observed at 150-250 ms after the stimulus onset, and there was no significant gender effect on MMN amplitudes in temporal or fronto-central areas. In contrast, in the visual modality, only increment vMMN was observed at 180-260 ms after the onset of stimulus, and it was higher in males than in females.ConclusionNo gender effect was found in change detection for auditory stimuli, but change detection was facilitated for visual stimuli in males.SignificanceGender effects should be considered in clinical studies of pre-attention for visual stimuli.