Table 4.

Analyses of possible confounding variables (covariates) regarding their effects of sex, valence category, and the interaction between sex and valence category

Variable	Interaction sex x-valence category	Main effect of valence category	Main effect of sex	Positive pictures only: main effect of sex	Neutral pictures only: main effect of sex	Negative pictures only: main effect of sex
Picture valence rating reaction speed	F(2,3442) = 19.97	F(2,3442) = 202.82	F(1,1720) = 5.71	t(1720) = −0.23	t(1720) = −1.65	t(1720) = −4.5
	p = 2.4 × 10−9	p < 1 × 10−16	p = 0.017	p = 0.82	p = 0.099	p = 7.4 × 10−6
				d = −0.01	d = −0.08	d = −0.23
Picture arousal rating reaction speed	F(2,3366) = 59.99	F(2,3366) = 50.61	F(1,1682) = 5.89	t(1682) = −0.71	t(1682) = 0.39	t(1682) = −6.46
	p < 1 × 10−16	p < 1 × 10−16	p = 0.015	p = 0.48	p = 0.7	p = 1.4 × 10−10
				d = −0.04	d = 0.02	d = −0.33
Words SD	F(2,3878) = 1.23	F(2,3878) = 83.7	F(1,1938) = 63.55	t(1938) = 6.51	t(1938) = 5.78	t(1938) = 4.76
	p = 0.29	p < 1 × 10−16	p = 2.7 × 10−15	p = 9.5 × 10−11	p = 8.7 × 10−9	p = 2.1 × 10−6
				d = 0.32	d = 0.28	d = 0.23

For reaction speed, there was a significant interaction between sex and valence category: males showed the slowest reaction times when viewing negative pictures (see Table 2). For the words short-delay (SD) memory there was a main effect of sex, with females in general outperforming males.