Gender Differences in Prism Adaptation as Influenced by a Secondary Task

This experiment investigated prism adaptation as influenced by performing a secondary task during the adapting and by the gender of the subject. Experimental subjects (10 males and 10 females) performed a secondary force-production task with the left hand, while adapting to prismatic displacement with the right (target-pointing). Control subjects (n = 20) were not required to perform the force-production task. While male subjects were not influenced by the secondary task manipulation, female subjects exhibited less adaptation. Since males' and females' performance did not differ on the secondary force-production task, it is unlikely that this finding can be explained by differential primary vs secondary task tradeoffs.