Pupil Dilation to Explicit and Non-Explicit Sexual Stimuli

Abstract

Pupil dilation to explicit sexual stimuli (footage of naked and aroused men or women) can elicit sex and sexual orientation differences in sexual response. If similar patterns were replicated with non-explicit sexual stimuli (footage of dressed men and women), then pupil dilation could be indicative of automatic sexual response in fully noninvasive designs. We examined this in 325 men and women with varied sexual orientations to determine whether dilation patterns to non-explicit sexual stimuli resembled those to explicit sexual stimuli depicting the same sex or other sex. Sexual orientation differences in pupil dilation to non-explicit sexual stimuli mirrored those to explicit sexual stimuli. However, the relationship of dilation to non-explicit sexual stimuli with dilation to corresponding explicit sexual stimuli was modest, and effect magnitudes were smaller with non-explicit sexual stimuli than explicit sexual stimuli. The prediction that sexual orientation differences in pupil dilation are larger in men than in women was confirmed with explicit sexual stimuli but not with non-explicit sexual stimuli.

Pupillary Responses to Static Images of Men and Women: A Possible Measure of Sexual Interest?

“…Such a pupil response may be dependent on processing the meaning of such images in a deliberative manner (i.e., deliberately focussing on the sexual content for images of one's preferred sexual category or employing other strategiesfor a review, see Rupp & Wallen, 2008), or on the development of conscious sexual arousal in the participants. We note, however, that a similar result (although with smaller effects sizes) was found for non-erotic stimuli (Watts, Holmes, Savin-Williams, & Rieger, 2017). This contrasts with the (relatively) rapid presentation (150 -3000 ms) of the present stimuli, with the response window being completed within 2000 ms of presentation in order to isolate the early automatic components of perceptual processing of these images.…”

Beyond Self-Report: A Review of Physiological and Neuroscientific Methods to Investigate Consumer Behavior

“…In consumer science, various studies have reported increases in pupil size in response to stimuli and experiences that evoke strong interest and emotions in consumers, such as when consumers listen to music that they experience as enjoyable and emotion-evoking ( Laeng et al, 2016 ) or when viewing human faces ( Blackburn and Schirillo, 2012 ) or art that are experienced as aesthetically pleasant ( Johnson et al, 2010 ). Increases in pupil size also allow researchers to differentiate consumers based on their interests, for instance, pupillary increases in response to (erotic) images of female and male models correspond with the sexual orientation of observers ( Rieger and Savin-Williams, 2012 ; Attard-Johnson and Bindemann, 2017 ; Watts et al, 2017 ) and impulsive, but not non-impulsive, buyers display enhanced pupil dilation when they are presented with shopping scenes ( Serfas et al, 2014 ). Pupillary measures are thus useful to measure whether products, experiences or people evoke interest and emotional reactions and arousal in consumers.…”

Sex-specific but not sexually explicit: pupillary responses to dressed and naked adults

“…In the sex literature, there is mixed evidence with regard to the response patterns of heterosexual women. Some studies have revealed pupil dilation in female observers that is indistinguishable to sexual content of men and women [1,6,7] or stronger for the opposite sex [3,4,12,22]. In light of these differences, the current study also investigated whether nudity influences the pupillary responses of heterosexual females by enhancing [3] or diminishing any sexual preference effects [11].…”

“…To provide a more direct comparison, a recent investigation contrasted observers' pupillary responses to video footage of nude persons performing sexual acts with footage of dressed persons discussing the weather [12]. In this study, pupil dilation patterns were stronger for sexually explicit stimuli, and these materials also yielded clearer sex differences.…”