Sex differences in viewing sexual stimuli: An eye-tracking study in men and women

Sexual arousal is a dynamical, highly coordinated neurophysiological process that is often induced by visual stimuli. Numerous studies have proposed that the cognitive processing stage of responding to sexual stimuli is the first stage, in which sex differences occur, and the divergence between men and women has been attributed to differences in the concerted activity of neural networks. The present comprehensive metaanalysis challenges this hypothesis and provides robust quantitative evidence that the neuronal circuitries activated by visual sexual stimuli are independent of biological sex. Sixty-one functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (1,850 individuals) that presented erotic visual stimuli to men and women of different sexual orientation were identified. Coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation was used to conduct metaanalyses. Sensitivity and clustering analyses of averaged neuronal response patterns were performed to investigate robustness of the findings. In contrast to neutral stimuli, sexual pictures and videos induce significant activations in brain regions, including insula, middle occipital, anterior cingulate and fusiform gyrus, amygdala, striatum, pulvinar, and substantia nigra. Cluster analysis suggests stimulus type as the most, and biological sex as the least, predictor for classification. Contrast analysis further shows no significant sex-specific differences within groups. Systematic review of sex differences in gray matter volume of brain regions associated with sexual arousal (3,723 adults) did not show any causal relationship between structural features and functional response to visual sexual stimuli. The neural basis of sexual arousal in humans is associated with sexual orientation yet, contrary to the widely accepted view, is not different between women and men.

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Author Correction: Sex Differences for Preferences of Shoulder to Hip Ratio in Men and Women: an Eye Tracking Study

Evolutionary Psychological Science ◽

10.1007/s40806-019-00204-1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 94-95

Author(s):

Farid Pazhoohi ◽

Ray Garza ◽

James F. Doyle ◽

Antonio F. Macedo ◽

Joana Arantes

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

Eye Tracking ◽

Men And Women

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Sex Differences for Preferences of Shoulder to Hip Ratio in Men and Women: an Eye Tracking Study

Evolutionary Psychological Science ◽

10.1007/s40806-019-00198-w ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 405-415 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Farid Pazhoohi ◽

Ray Garza ◽

James F. Doyle ◽

Antonio F. Macedo ◽

Joana Arantes

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

Eye Tracking ◽

Men And Women

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Accurate sex classification from neural responses to sexual stimuli

10.1101/2022.01.10.473972 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Vesa Juhani Putkinen ◽

Sanaz Nazari-Farsani ◽

Tomi Karjalainen ◽

Severi Santavirta ◽

Matthew Hudson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Activity Patterns ◽

Men And Women ◽

Sexual Stimuli ◽

Dorsal Attention Network ◽

Film Clips ◽

Attentional Engagement ◽

Visual Sexual Stimuli ◽

Multivariate Pattern

Sex differences in brain activity evoked by sexual stimuli remain elusive despite robust evidence for stronger enjoyment of and interest towards sexual stimuli in men than in women. To test whether visual sexual stimuli evoke different brain activity patterns in men and women, we measured haemodynamic brain activity induced by visual sexual stimuli in two experiments in 91 subjects (46 males). In one experiment, the subjects viewed sexual and non-sexual film clips and dynamic annotations for nudity in the clips was used to predict their hemodynamic activity. In the second experiment, the subjects viewed sexual and non-sexual pictures in an event-related design. Males showed stronger activation than females in the visual and prefrontal cortices and dorsal attention network in both experiments. Furthermore, using multivariate pattern classification we could accurately predict the sex of the subject on the basis of the brain activity elicited by the sexual stimuli. The classification generalized across the experiments indicating that the sex differences were consistent across the experiments. Eye tracking data obtained from an independent sample of subjects (N = 110) showed that men looked longer than women at the chest area of the nude female actors in the film clips. These results indicate that visual sexual stimuli evoke discernible brain activity patterns in men and women which may reflect stronger attentional engagement with sexual stimuli in men than women.

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The Effectiveness of Using Sexual Appeals in Advertising

Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications ◽

10.1027/1864-1105/a000194 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 184-195 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Lelia Samson

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

Free Recall ◽

Visual Recognition ◽

Visual Content ◽

Men And Women ◽

Theoretical Contribution ◽

Sexual Stimuli ◽

Related Information ◽

Sexual Appeals ◽

Insight Into

Abstract. This study empirically investigates the effectiveness of using visual sexual appeals on the memory of men and women. It examines memory for the commercials activated by sexual versus nonsexual visual appeals. A mixed-factorial experiment was conducted. Visual recognition and free recall were recorded in 146 participants (males = 71 and females = 75). The results substantiate the evolutionary psychology claims. Support for the motivational information-processing and the distraction hypothesis was found in male viewers. The results indicate that sexual appeals enhance memory for the advertisements themselves, but they distract men from processing brand-related information. Male participants encoded and recalled less brand-related information from advertisements with sexual appeals. The study offers guidelines for advertisers and marketing producers while also providing insight into gender/sex differences in processing sexual stimuli. It also makes a key theoretical contribution to the field by parsing out the influence of sexual versus nonsexual visual content from the confounding impact of visual sexual versus verbal nonsexual memory.

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Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Reactivity

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803.23.2.77 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 77-84 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Matthew C. Whited ◽

Kevin T. Larkin

Keyword(s):

Blood Pressure ◽

Heart Rate ◽

Sex Differences ◽

Gender Roles ◽

Cardiovascular Reactivity ◽

Task Type ◽

Conflict Task ◽

Men And Women ◽

Conflicting Evidence ◽

Blood Pressure Responses

Sex differences in cardiovascular reactivity to stress are well documented, with some studies showing women having greater heart rate responses than men, and men having greater blood pressure responses than women, while other studies show conflicting evidence. Few studies have attended to the gender relevance of tasks employed in these studies. This study investigated cardiovascular reactivity to two interpersonal stressors consistent with different gender roles to determine whether response differences exist between men and women. A total of 26 men and 31 women were assigned to either a traditional male-oriented task that involved interpersonal conflict (Conflict Task) or a traditional female-oriented task that involved comforting another person (Comfort Task). Results demonstrated that women exhibited greater heart rate reactions than men independent of the task type, and that men did not display a higher reactivity than women on any measure. These findings indicate that sex of participant was more important than gender relevance of the task in eliciting sex differences in cardiovascular responding.

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The Relationship of Compliance with Coping Strategies and Self-Esteem

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027//1015-5759.19.2.117 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 117-123 ◽

Cited By ~ 40

Author(s):

Gisli H. Gudjonsson ◽

Jon Fridrik Sigurdsson

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

Coping Strategies ◽

Multiple Regression ◽

Sex Difference ◽

Test Scores ◽

Self Esteem ◽

Stressful Situation ◽

Men And Women ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

Summary: The Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS), the COPE Scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were administered to 212 men and 212 women. Multiple regression of the test scores showed that low self-esteem and denial coping were the best predictors of compliance in both men and women. Significant sex differences emerged on all three scales, with women having lower self-esteem than men, being more compliant, and using different coping strategies when confronted with a stressful situation. The sex difference in compliance was mediated by differences in self-esteem between men and women.

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Sex Differences in Time Production Revisited

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001/a000059 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 35-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Joseph Glicksohn ◽

Yamit Hadad

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Sex Difference ◽

Absolute Error ◽

Internal Clock ◽

Target Duration ◽

Log P ◽

Men And Women ◽

Time Production ◽

T Score

Individual differences in time production should indicate differences in the rate of functioning of an internal clock, assuming the existence of such a clock. And sex differences in time production should reflect a difference in the rate of functioning of that clock between men and women. One way of approaching the data is to compute individual regressions of produced duration (P) on target duration (T), after log transformation, and to derive estimates for the intercept and the slope. One could investigate a sex difference by comparing these estimates for men and women; one could also contrast them by looking at mean log(P). Using such indices, we found a sex difference in time production, female participants having a relatively faster internal clock, making shorter time productions, and having a smaller exponent. The question is whether a sex difference in time production would be found using other methods for analyzing the data: (1) the P/T ratio; (2) an absolute discrepancy (|P-T|) score; and (3) an absolute error (|P-T|/T) score. For the P/T ratio, female participants have a lower mean ratio in comparison to the male participants. In contrast, the |P-T| and |P-T|/T indices seem to be seriously compromised by wide individual differences.

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