Journal article 119 views 40 downloads
Automatic Distraction by Sexual Images: Gender Differences
,
Poppy Midgley,
Nicola Gray
Sexes, Volume: 5, Issue: 4, Pages: 778 - 795
Swansea University Author:
Nicola Gray
-
PDF | Version of Record
© 2024 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
Download (1.33MB)
DOI (Published version): 10.3390/sexes5040050
Abstract
Sexual stimuli are thought to be highly salient and have been shown to automatically attract attention at the cost of processing other stimuli. We examined whether this effect was greater for men and whether men would show a category-specific effect with greater effects due to female images than mal...
| Published in: | Sexes |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2411-5118 |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2024
|
| Online Access: |
Check full text
|
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa68618 |
| Abstract: |
Sexual stimuli are thought to be highly salient and have been shown to automatically attract attention at the cost of processing other stimuli. We examined whether this effect was greater for men and whether men would show a category-specific effect with greater effects due to female images than male images. In two studies, participants performed a simple perceptual task while trying to ignore a distractor stimulus that could have sexual or neutral content. As expected, sexual stimuli produced a slowing of decision times under all conditions. The effect of erotic stimuli was greater for men (Experiment 1) and was category-specific (Experiment 2) while the response of women was not category specific (Experiment 2). However, all indices of distraction showed poor levels of reliability. The results show that early automatic distraction from sexual images show both quantitative and qualitative gender differences. |
|---|---|
| Keywords: |
Sexual stimuli; sexual-content-induced delay (SCID); distractibility; gender differences |
| College: |
Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences |
| Funders: |
This paper received no external funding. |
| Issue: |
4 |
| Start Page: |
778 |
| End Page: |
795 |