In a sample of 183 men and 186 women, the authors assessed (a) the relative contributions of gender and level of nonverbal social cues to the perception of a female actor's sexual intent during a videotaped social interaction with a man and (b) the association between those variables and personality traits implicated in faulty sexual-information processing. The authors assessed those variables while the participants viewed 1 of 3 film segments depicting a female-male interaction. The authors experimentally manipulated eye contact, touch, physical proximity, and female clothing. At all levels of those nonverbal cues, the men perceived more sexual intent in the female actor than did the women. The perception of the female actor's sexual intent increased as the nonverbal cues in the film segments were magnified: Both actors displayed more eye contact, touch, and physical proximity, and the female actor wore more revealing clothing. Relative to the women, the men demonstrated greater sexual preoccupation and reduced sociosexual effectiveness, variables associated with inferring greater sexual intent in the female actor.
Sixteen men were tested under conditions where they viewed the same segment of erotic film on many occasions or engaged repeatedly in the same erotic fantasy. Decrements in penile tumescence and subjective sexual arousal over trials were accompanied by reports from Ss that they felt less absorbed in the events depicted in film or fantasy (and in the case of fantasy, that the images they formed became less vivid). Analysis of covariance showed that habituation (reduction in physiological and subjective measures of sexual arousal over trials) was less when allowance was made for the manner in which absorption (and in vividness of imagery in the case of fantasy) changed during erotic stimulation. Increases in sexual arousal when novel erotic stimulation was introduced following habituation, as well as the dishabituation found when the original stimulus was reinstated, also correlated with the extent absorption and vividness of imagery shifted under these conditions. The results are discussed with reference to whether habituation of male sexual arousal is mediated by changes that occur in absorption and other aspects of information processing during repeated erotic stimulation.
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