Classical Conditioning of Sexual Arousal in Women and Men: Effects of Varying Awareness and Biological Relevance of the Conditioned Stimulus

Abstract

Classical conditioning of sexual arousal has previously been demonstrated in human males but not in females. This study explored the role of classical (Pavlovian) conditioning in the activation of genital sexual arousal in both women and men, and assessed the effects of varying conditioned stimulus (CS) duration (subliminal/conscious) and relevance (sexually relevant/irrelevant). Twenty-seven female and 29 male participants received either subliminal or conscious presentations of a photograph of either a sexually relevant (abdomen of the opposite sex) or irrelevant (gun) CS+, which was followed by the unconditioned stimulus (US-erotic film clip). A CS-, a stimulus not paired with the US, was also included in the 11 conditioning trials. Ten participants were assigned to a control group that received unpaired presentations of the CS+, CS-, and the US. Both women and men showed more evidence of conditioning to the abdomen than to the gun when the CS was presented subliminally. When consciously perceived CSs were used, however, gender differences emerged. Men again showed the expected cue-to-consequence specificity but women showed the opposite effect, that is, conditioned arousal to the sexually irrelevant rather than to the relevant CS. The latter finding may be due to increased autonomic nervous system arousal associated with the irrelevant CS (gun). Skin conductance responses indicated more general arousal to the gun than to the male abdomen in women. This is the first study to compare the effects of a subliminal and conscious CS and to find classical conditioning of sexual arousal in women.

Cybersex addiction: Experienced sexual arousal when watching pornography and not real-life sexual contacts makes the difference

“…Neuroimaging studies point out the involvement of neural structures related to the reward in sexual arousal (Arnow et al, 2002;Paul et al, 2008;Redouté et al, 2000) and orgasm (Holstege et al, 2003) leading to the conclusion that sexual arousal is highly reinforcing (Georgiadis & Kringelbach, 2012). Moreover, there is evidence showing conditioned sexual arousal in humans (Hoffmann, Janssen & Turner, 2004;Klucken et al, 2009;Lalumiere & Quinsey, 1998). Taken together, sexual arousal as an unconditioned stimulus can become associated with initially neutral stimuli potentially mediating future sexual behavior.…”

Indirect Effects of Acute Alcohol Intoxication on Sexual Risk-taking: The Roles of Subjective and Physiological Sexual Arousal

“…Movement artifacts, defined as clear spikes of more than 5 mm in an otherwise smooth curve, were deleted based on visual inspection of raw data. Data were then digitally transformed and exported to statistical software for analysis (Hoffmann, Janssen, & Turner, 2004). Fig.…”

The valence of experiences with faces influences generalized preferences

“…viewing pictures of college professors labelled as giving good or bad marks affected perceptions of novel faces that resembled the professors). However, other studies have found that conditioned sexual responses to photographs do not generalize to novel views of the same individuals (HOFFMANN et al 2004), suggesting effects of the valence of experiences with individual faces on face preferences may not necessarily generalize to attractiveness judgments of novel, physically similar faces.…”