The effect of static versus dynamic stimuli on visual processing of sexual cues in androphilic women and gynephilic men

Models of sexual response posit that attentional processing of sexual cues is requisite for sexual responding. Despite hypothesized similarities in the underlying processes resulting in sexual response, gender differences in sexual arousal patterns are abundant. One such gender difference relates to the stimulus features (e.g. gender cues, sexual activity cues) that elicit a response in men and women. In this study, we examined how stimulus modality (static visual images versus dynamic audiovisual films) and stimulus features (gender, sexual activity and nonsexual contextual cues) influences attentional (i.e. gaze) and elaborative (i.e. self-reported attraction (SRA), self-reported arousal) processing of sexual stimuli. Men's initial and controlled attention was consistently gender-specific (i.e. greater attention towards female targets), and this was not influenced by stimulus modality or the presence of sexual activity cues. By contrast, gender-specificity of women's attention patterns differed as a function of attentional stage, stimulus modality and the features within the stimulus. Degree of specificity was positively predictive of SRA in both genders; however, it was not significantly predictive of self-reported arousal. These findings are discussed in the context of gendered processing of visual sexual information, including a discussion of implications for research designs.

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Understanding heterosexual women’s erotic flexibility: the role of attention in sexual evaluations and neural responses to sexual stimuli

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience ◽

10.1093/scan/nsaa058 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 447-465

Author(s):

Janna A Dickenson ◽

Lisa Diamond ◽

Jace B King ◽

Kay Jenson ◽

Jeffrey S Anderson

Keyword(s):

Sexual Orientation ◽

Neural Activity ◽

Visual Processing ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Attentional Processing ◽

Sexual Stimuli ◽

Mindful Attention ◽

Heterosexual Women ◽

And Behavior

Abstract Many women experience desires, arousal and behavior that run counter to their sexual orientation (orientation inconsistent, ‘OI’). Are such OI sexual experiences cognitively and neurobiologically distinct from those that are consistent with one’s sexual orientation (orientation consistent, ‘OC’)? To address this question, we employed a mindful attention intervention—aimed at reducing judgment and enhancing somatosensory attention—to examine the underlying attentional and neurobiological processes of OC and OI sexual stimuli among predominantly heterosexual women. Women exhibited greater neural activity in response to OC, compared to OI, sexual stimuli in regions associated with implicit visual processing, volitional appraisal and attention. In contrast, women exhibited greater neural activity to OI, relative to OC, sexual stimuli in regions associated with complex visual processing and attentional shifting. Mindfully attending to OC sexual stimuli reduced distraction, amplified women’s evaluations of OC stimuli as sexually arousing and deactivated the superior cerebellum. In contrast, mindfully attending to OI sexual stimuli amplified distraction, decreased women’s evaluations of OI stimuli as sexually arousing and augmented parietal and temporo-occipital activity. Results of the current study constrain hypotheses of female erotic flexibility, suggesting that sexual orientation may be maintained by differences in attentional processing that cannot be voluntarily altered.

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Visual Attention and Sexual Function in Women

Current Sexual Health Reports ◽

10.1007/s11930-021-00312-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sonia Milani ◽

Samantha J. Dawson ◽

Julia Velten

Keyword(s):

Sexual Dysfunction ◽

Visual Attention ◽

Sexual Function ◽

Sexual Arousal ◽

Empirical Support ◽

Theoretical Models ◽

Sexual Response ◽

Future Research ◽

Attentional Processing ◽

Sexual Stimuli

Abstract Purpose of Review Theoretical models situate attention as integral to the onset and regulation of sexual response and propose that problems with sexual response and subsequent sexual dysfunction result from insufficient attentional processing of sexual stimuli. The goal of this paper is to review literature examining the link between attentional processing of sexual stimuli and sexual function in women. Specifically, we sought to understand whether women with and without sexual dysfunction differ in their visual attention to sexual stimuli and examined the link with sexual response, which would support attention as a mechanism underlying sexual dysfunction. Recent Findings Across women with and without sexual concerns, sexual stimuli are preferentially attended to relative to nonsexual stimuli, suggesting that sexual stimuli are more salient than nonsexual stimuli. Differences between women with and without sexual dysfunction emerge when examining visual attention toward the most salient features of sexual stimuli (e.g., genital regions depicting sexual activity). Consistent with theoretical models, visual attention and sexual response are related, such that increasing attention to sexual cues facilitates sexual arousal, whereas reduced attention to sexual stimuli appears to suppress sexual arousal, which may contribute to sexual difficulties in women. Summary Taken together, the research supports the role of visual attention in sexual response and sexual function. These findings provide empirical support for interventions that target attentional processing of sexual stimuli. Future research is required to further delineate the specific attentional mechanisms involved in sexual response and investigate whether these are modifiable. This knowledge may be beneficial for developing novel psychological interventions targeting attentional processes in the treatment of sexual dysfunctions.

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Gender Differences in Implicit Processing of Sexual Stimuli

European Journal of Personality ◽

10.1002/per.2031 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 30 (2) ◽

pp. 107-124 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Marieke Dewitte

Keyword(s):

Gender Differences ◽

Sexual Response ◽

Implicit Processing ◽

Personality Psychology ◽

Men And Women ◽

Avoidance Motivation ◽

Sexual Information ◽

Sexual Stimuli ◽

Elaborative Processing ◽

Sexually Explicit

The present studies investigated whether men and women differ in cognitive–motivational processing of sexual stimuli in order to better understand the commonly observed gender differences in sexual outcome variables. Because these processes often operate without conscious control, we focused specifically on automatic stimulus processing. Using a series of implicit tasks, we measured inhibition, attentional orientation, appraisal and approach–avoidance motivation regarding sexually explicit stimuli in male and female students. Results showed that men were more strongly motivated to approach sexual stimuli than women and were better able to inhibit sexual information as to prevent activation of the sexual response. With regard to attentional orientation, men were more easily drawn by sexual cues than women, yet only when the cues were presented long enough to allow more elaborative processing. No gender differences were found in the implicit evaluation of sexual information, although men and women did differ at the level of self–reported sexual evaluations. Our results indicate the importance of incorporating information–processing mechanisms and emotion regulation strategies into the conceptualization of the sexual response and promote further research on the specificity, robustness, predictive validity and malleability of the cognitive–motivational processes underlying sexual arousal. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology

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Gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal to prepotent sexual stimuli in androphilic men and gynephilic women

The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality ◽

10.3138/cjhs.2021-0004 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. e20210004

Author(s):

Nina Micanovic ◽

Amanda D. Timmers ◽

Meredith L. Chivers

Keyword(s):

Sexual Arousal ◽

Specific Pattern ◽

Sexual Response ◽

Sex Characteristics ◽

Complex Nature ◽

Specific Response ◽

Response Patterns ◽

Sexual Stimuli ◽

Subjective Sexual Arousal ◽

Gender Specific

Marked differences have been found in men’s and women’s sexual response patterns, contingent upon their sexual orientation; androphilic (attracted to men) and gynephilic (attracted to women) men demonstrate greatest genital and self-reported arousal to their preferred stimulus type (a “gender-specific” response), whereas androphilic women do not, and findings for gynephilic women have been mixed. While there have been many investigations into gynephilic men’s and androphilic women’s (i.e., heterosexual men/women) sexual response, there has been less investigation into the specificity of sexual response of androphilic men and gynephilic women. Given the complex nature of sexual stimuli that are used in sexual response research, it is often unclear to what extent contextual cues (e.g., cues other than the sexual actor’s primary and secondary sex characteristics, such as physical attractiveness, sexual activity, etc.) influence participants’ sexual response patterns. As such, the current study examined genital, discrete self-reported, and continuous self-reported responses of androphilic men ( n = 22) and gynephilic women ( n = 10) to prepotent sexual features (stimuli thought to elicit automatic sexual arousal: erect penises and exposed vulvas), non-prepotent sexual features (flaccid penises and pubic triangles) and neutral stimuli (clothed men and women). Both samples exhibited a gender-specific pattern of genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported sexual arousal. Similarly, all measures of sexual arousal were generally found to be greatest to “prepotent” sexual cues. Implications for understanding gender specificity of sexual response are discussed.

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Perceptual insensitivity to higher-order statistical moments of coherent random dot motion

10.1101/261370 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Michael L. Waskom ◽

Janeen Asfour ◽

Roozbeh Kiani

Keyword(s):

Visual Processing ◽

Probability Distributions ◽

Higher Order ◽

Statistical Moments ◽

Coherent Motion ◽

It Use ◽

Higher Order Moments ◽

Dynamic Stimuli ◽

Dot Motion ◽

The Individual

ABSTRACTWhen the visual system analyses distributed patterns of sensory inputs, what features of those distributions does it use? It has been previously demonstrated that higher-order statistical moments of luminance distributions influence perception of static surfaces and textures. Here, we tested whether the brain also represents higher-order moments of dynamic stimuli. We constructed random dot kinematograms where dots moved according to probability distributions that selectively differed in terms of their mean, variance, skewness, or kurtosis. When viewing these stimuli, human observers were sensitive to the mean direction of coherent motion and to the variance of the individual dot displacement angles, but they were insensitive to skewness and kurtosis. Observer behavior accorded with a model of directional motion energy, suggesting that information about higher-order moments is discarded early in the visual processing hierarchy. These results demonstrate that use of higher-order moments is not a general property of visual perception.

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VGluT1 Deficiency Impairs Visual Attention and Reduces the Dynamic Range of Short-Term Plasticity at Corticothalamic Synapses

Cerebral Cortex ◽

10.1093/cercor/bhz204 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 30 (3) ◽

pp. 1813-1829

Author(s):

Sarah H Lindström ◽

Sofie C Sundberg ◽

Max Larsson ◽

Fredrik K Andersson ◽

Jonas Broman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Visual Processing ◽

Dynamic Range ◽

Sensorimotor Gating ◽

Short Term ◽

Attention Task ◽

Attentional Processing ◽

Excitatory Neurotransmitter ◽

Release Probability ◽

Visual Spatial

Abstract The most common excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, glutamate, is loaded into synaptic vesicles by vesicular glutamate transporters (VGluTs). The primary isoforms, VGluT1 and 2, are expressed in complementary patterns throughout the brain and correlate with short-term synaptic plasticity. VGluT1 deficiency is observed in certain neurological disorders, and hemizygous (VGluT1+/−) mice display increased anxiety and depression, altered sensorimotor gating, and impairments in learning and memory. The synaptic mechanisms underlying these behavioral deficits are unknown. Here, we show that VGluT1+/− mice had decreased visual processing speeds during a sustained visual-spatial attention task. Furthermore, in vitro recordings of corticothalamic (CT) synapses revealed dramatic reductions in short-term facilitation, increased initial release probability, and earlier synaptic depression in VGluT1+/− mice. Our electron microscopy results show that VGluT1 concentration is reduced at CT synapses of hemizygous mice, but other features (such as vesicle number and active zone size) are unchanged. We conclude that VGluT1-haploinsuficiency decreases the dynamic range of gain modulation provided by CT feedback to the thalamus, and this deficiency contributes to the observed attentional processing deficit. We further hypothesize that VGluT1 concentration regulates release probability by applying a “brake” to an unidentified presynaptic protein that typically acts as a positive regulator of release.

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The neural mechanism of aesthetic judgments of dynamic landscapes: an fMRI study

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-77658-y ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Xueru Zhao ◽

Junjing Wang ◽

Jinhui Li ◽

Guang Luo ◽

Ting Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Visual Processing ◽

Occipital Lobe ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

Aesthetic Judgment ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽

Dynamic Stimuli ◽

Dynamic Landscapes ◽

The Aesthetic ◽

Aesthetic Judgments

AbstractMost previous neuroaesthetics research has been limited to considering the aesthetic judgment of static stimuli, with few studies examining the aesthetic judgment of dynamic stimuli. The present study explored the neural mechanisms underlying aesthetic judgment of dynamic landscapes, and compared the neural mechanisms between the aesthetic judgments of dynamic landscapes and static ones. Participants were scanned while they performed aesthetic judgments on dynamic landscapes and matched static ones. The results revealed regions of occipital lobe, frontal lobe, supplementary motor area, cingulate cortex and insula were commonly activated both in the aesthetic judgments of dynamic and static landscapes. Furthermore, compared to static landscapes, stronger activations of middle temporal gyrus (MT/V5), and hippocampus were found in the aesthetic judgments of dynamic landscapes. This study provided neural evidence that visual processing related regions, emotion-related regions were more active when viewing dynamic landscapes than static ones, which also indicated that dynamic stimuli were more beautiful than static ones.

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THE ROLE OF SEXUAL DESIRE AND SEXUAL ACTIVITY IN DATING RELATIONSHIPS

Social Behavior and Personality An International Journal ◽

10.2224/sbp.2000.28.1.51 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 51-59 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Pamela C. Regan

Keyword(s):

Sexual Activity ◽

Sexual Desire ◽

Relationship Maintenance ◽

Sexual Response ◽

Relational Maintenance ◽

Dating Relationships ◽

Love Relationships ◽

Passionate Love

Previous research indicates that adults believe that sexual desire and sexual activity play different roles in love relationships. Little research, however, has been conducted to document the presumed differences between these two aspects of human sexual response. The purpose of this study was to examine empirically (1) whether sexual desire and sexual activity co-occur in dating relationships; (2) whether desire is more strongly associated than activity with passionate love; and (3) whether desire and activity have different implications for relationship maintenance. The results revealed that sexual desire and sexual activity were moderately (but not significantly) related. In addition, and as expected, only sexual desire was related to passionate love. Sexual desire also was related to relational maintenance; the greater the desire for the partner, the less often participants thought about ending their current relationship, thought about beginning a new relationship, reported being unfaithful to their partner, and felt attracted to others.

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Intrasaccadic motion streaks jump-start gaze correction

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.abf2218 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (30) ◽

pp. eabf2218 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Richard Schweitzer ◽

Martin Rolfs

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Processing ◽

Visual Information ◽

High Speed ◽

Target Motion ◽

Object Correspondence ◽

Visual Projection ◽

Stimulus Features ◽

Object Features ◽

Gaze Correction

Rapid eye movements (saccades) incessantly shift objects across the retina. To establish object correspondence, the visual system is thought to match surface features of objects across saccades. Here, we show that an object’s intrasaccadic retinal trace—a signal previously considered unavailable to visual processing—facilitates this match making. Human observers made saccades to a cued target in a circular stimulus array. Using high-speed visual projection, we swiftly rotated this array during the eyes’ flight, displaying continuous intrasaccadic target motion. Observers’ saccades landed between the target and a distractor, prompting secondary saccades. Independently of the availability of object features, which we controlled tightly, target motion increased the rate and reduced the latency of gaze-correcting saccades to the initial presaccadic target, in particular when the target’s stimulus features incidentally gave rise to efficient motion streaks. These results suggest that intrasaccadic visual information informs the establishment of object correspondence and jump-starts gaze correction.

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Electrophysiological evidence of enhanced early attentional bias toward sexual images in individuals with tendencies toward cybersex addiction

Journal of Behavioral Addictions ◽

10.1556/2006.2021.00082 ◽

2021 ◽

Keyword(s):

Attentional Bias ◽

Interference Effect ◽

Cue Reactivity ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Stroop Interference ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Attentional Processing ◽

Sexual Stimuli ◽

Related Potentials

Abstract Background and aims Attentional bias is a key factor in addictive behavior maintenance. However, whether attentional bias has a similar effect on cybersex addiction is unclear. We investigated differences in the attentional processing of sexually explicit images between individuals with high tendencies toward cybersex addiction (TCA) versus low tendencies using behavioral and electrophysiological indices. Methods Twenty-eight individuals with high TCA and 29 with low TCA performed an addiction Stroop task comprising sexual and neutral images in colored frames. Participants were asked to respond to the frame color and not the image contents, and behavioral and event-related potentials were recorded. Results Behaviorally, an addiction Stroop interference effect was found in the high TCA group, as shown by the longer reaction times to judge the frame colors of sexual images. Electrophysiologically, a P200 (150–220 ms) enhancement was present in response to sexual images compared with neutral ones, which was absent in the low TCA group. The event-related potential correlates with the addiction Stroop interference effect, indicating that the attentional bias underlying the addiction Stroop interference operates at an automatic level. A general, sexually related bias was found in the late positive potential (300–700 ms) amplitude, although between-group differences were insignificant. Discussion and conclusions These findings indicate that sexual stimuli grab the attentional resources of individuals with high TCA at early automatic stages of attentional processing. Increased cue reactivity to sexual stimuli may contribute to pornographic consumption and play a crucial role in sustaining problematic excessive use of online pornography.

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