Using immersive virtual reality and ecological psychology to probe into child molesters' phenomenology

Renaud, Patrice; Chartier, Sylvain; Rouleau, Joanne-Lucine; Proulx, Jean; Goyette, Mathieu; Trottier, Dominique; Fedoroff, Paul; Bradford, John-P; Dassylva, Benoît; Bouchard, Stéphane

doi:10.1080/13552600.2011.617014

Cited by 39 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…Through the use of new technologies, it is possible to identify both overt and covert faking attempts by participants, resulting in an increase in the procedure's internal validity [20]. In addition, eye-tracking during PPG assessment offers direct access to exploration patterns and intentional dynamics specific to child molesters [16] [20]. These results suggest the presence of ocular dynamics specific to child molesters, and corroborate conclusions from other researchers [8].…”

Section: Deviant Sexual Arousal In Child Molestationsupporting

confidence: 75%

Virtual reality applications in forensic psychiatry

Benbouriche

Nolet

Trottier

et al. 2014

Proceedings of the 2014 Virtual Reality International Conference

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Violent offending behaviours remain an important issue in particular when associated with mental illness. To prevent recidivism and protect society, investments are required to develop new tools that would provide decision makers with a better understanding of violent behaviours and ultimately improve treatment options for violent offenders. Recently, Virtual Reality (VR) is gaining recognition as promising tool in forensic psychiatry. Amongst other things, VR allows a renewal from both methodological and theoretical points of view. The aim of this paper is to introduce VR applications in the context of forensic psychiatry. After a brief introduction to the purpose of forensic psychiatry, examples will be given in order to illustrate how VR can help address some of the field's current issues.

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Section: Deviant Sexual Arousal In Child Molestationsupporting

confidence: 75%

Virtual reality applications in forensic psychiatry

Benbouriche

Nolet

Trottier

et al. 2014

Proceedings of the 2014 Virtual Reality International Conference

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“…Eye-tracking has been used to develop a measure of stimulus attention within a Virtual Reality Simulator (Renaud, DéClarie, Gourd, Paquin, & Bouchard, 2003) indicating that pedophiles show a less stable, slower and more sexually oriented gaze pattern than control subjects (Renaud, et.al. 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaze patterns to child figures reflect deviant sexual preference in child sex offenders—a first glance

Hall

Hogue

Guo

2014

Journal of Sexual Aggression

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Research on non-offending heterosexual participants has indicated that men's gaze allocation reflects their sexual preference. In this exploratory pilot study we investigated whether naturalistic gaze behaviour is sensitive to deviant sexual preferences. We compared gaze patterns of convicted heterosexual child sex offenders (n = 13) with female victims to heterosexual nonoffending men (n = 13) in a task of free-viewing images of clothed male and female figures aged 10, 20 and 40 years old. Child sex offenders (CSO) dedicated more fixations to the upper-body of the female child than male child figures. The pattern was different for the control sample, whose gaze pattern to male and female figures could only be differentiated when viewing adult figures. CSO showed significantly greater difference in their gaze towards the upper-body of male and female children than non-offenders. Our findings provide preliminary evidence for eyetracking as a potential method of assessing deviant sexual interest.

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“…To address these criticisms, some researchers have developed computer-generated stimuli (Renaud et al, 2007(Renaud et al, , 2009(Renaud et al, , 2010(Renaud et al, , 2013. For example, Renaud and colleagues (2009) used computer-generated, emotionally neutral three-dimensional characters representing naked human beings, both male and female.…”

Section: External Validity Of Ppg Stimulimentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In other words, offenders may approach the same potential sexual partner only under particular circumstances, such as when the potential partner is perceived to be inviting sexual contact. Sexual interests can be highly individual, making it difficult to develop stimuli that are general and inclusive to the entire sex offender population, while also specific to the scenarios an individual finds arousing (Kalmus & Beech, 2005;Renaud et al, 2009Renaud et al, , 2013Renaud et al, , 2014.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

A pilot development of virtual stimuli depicting affective dispositions for penile plethysmography assessment of sex offenders

Dennis

Rouleau

Renaud

et al. 2014

The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality

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There are concerns regarding the reliability, realism, and validity of stimulus materials used in the assessment of sexual interests among sex offenders. This article explores new stimulus materials for use with penile plethysmography (PPG) assessments. First, this paper presents a pilot study where undergraduate students rated virtual characters (male and female) on perceived age. In addition, the materials developed are unique in that they depict the characters exhibiting varying affective dispositions, including neutral, fearful, sad, joyful, and seductive. Participants in the first study were also asked to identify the affective disposition of the virtual characters, and results suggest that affective disposition was largely perceived as intended, especially in terms of identifying the general emotional valence of the affective dispositions (i.e., positive versus negative). In a second pilot study, we used the computer-generated images to measure sexual arousal responses in a group of non-deviant males recruited in the community. Responses measured through penile plethysmography suggest participants responded to the stimuli as expected, as the greatest amount of sexual arousal was recorded when participants were shown the adult female character. In addition, participants responded with significant arousal only when the adult female character was depicted as sexually open ( joyful or seductive), rather than sexually closed or neutral. Results suggest these materials may discriminate sexual interests if applied within clinical forensic assessment of sex offenders.

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Using immersive virtual reality and ecological psychology to probe into child molesters' phenomenology

Cited by 39 publications

References 76 publications

Virtual reality applications in forensic psychiatry

Virtual reality applications in forensic psychiatry

Gaze patterns to child figures reflect deviant sexual preference in child sex offenders—a first glance

A pilot development of virtual stimuli depicting affective dispositions for penile plethysmography assessment of sex offenders

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