Investigating the Task Dependency of Viewing Time Effects

Abstract

The viewing time method (VT) is an indirect measure of sexual interest in which participants are usually asked to rate the sexual attractiveness of target stimuli while their response latencies are unobtrusively measured. Higher response latencies for a certain group of depicted individuals indicate sexual interest in that group. Contrary to the general assumption that the picture content accounts for this effect by eliciting affect- or attention-based response delays, we hypothesized that the attractiveness rating task might be responsible for the VT effect. To test this hypothesis, we used two different tasks. Our heterosexual and homosexual male participants (N = 50) were instructed to rate the attractiveness or the sex of the depicted individuals. As expected, VT effects only emerged in attractiveness rating trials. Based on these findings, we conclude that VT effects are task dependent and are unlikely to be caused by affective or attentional processes (at least when participants are instructed to rate the attractiveness of target stimuli). We argue that rating tasks in VT measures cause participants to use affect independent response strategies. These response strategies seem to undermine stimulus-driven processes (like increased attention directed toward salient stimuli) which were thought to cause VT effects according to previous hypotheses.

A Meta-Analysis of Viewing Time Measures of Sexual Interest in Children

“…Instead, findings corroborate that the primary task of scrutinizing a set of criteria subjectively relevant for determining sexual attractiveness is likely causing VT effects of sexual orientation: Denying any single attractiveness criterion results in fast rejection of targets whereas more criteria need to be checked to determine subjective sexual attractiveness which takes longer (see also Pohl, Wolters, & Ponseti, 2015). Therefore, VT effects should better be described as prolonged decision latencies for targets' sexual attractiveness (Imhoff et al, 2010).…”

“…From an applied perspective the described task-driven effects pose a potential threat to the diagnostic validity of VT paradigms: Only as long as participants comply with the instructions to rate targets' sexual attractiveness, would the measure be expected to produce meaningful results. On the contrary, whenever participants perform sexually irrelevant rating tasks, latency patterns in standard VT paradigms will be invalid (Imhoff et al, 2012;Pohl et al, 2015).…”

Decoding Pedophilia: Increased Anterior Insula Response to Infant Animal Pictures

“…Sexual gender and age orientation were confirmed by means of a modified version of the Kinsey scale for developmental stages ( Kirk et al, 2000 ). In cases of uncertainty regarding the sexual age orientation, a viewing-time paradigm ( Pohl et al, 2015 ), legal information (if available), and individual case conferences were utilized to ensure valid clinical diagnoses. The Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM (SCID) ( Wittchen et al, 1997 ) was completed to assess for DSM-IV-TR ( American Psychiatric Association, 2000 ) Axis I and II disorders.…”

Testing Causal Explanations of Viewing Time Measures of Sexual Interests

“…Further support for this feature-checking account comes from the fact that rating the sex rather than the sexual attractiveness of the depicted person eradicated response time differences between gay and straight men in VT tasks (Pohl et al, 2016).…”