Automatic distraction by sexual images: Gender differences

Snowden, Robert J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9900-480X, Midgley, Poppy and Gray, Nicola S. 2024. Automatic distraction by sexual images: Gender differences. Sexes 5 (4) , pp. 778-795. 10.3390/sexes5040050

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB)

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.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	11 December 2024
Date of Acceptance:	11 December 2024
Last Modified:	16 Dec 2024 14:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/174692

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item