Eye-tracking in sex research: Comparing genders on processing of erotic stimuLi

The fact that sexual experiences, comprising cognitive, affective, and behavioral components, are private and socio-culturally laden has limited the types of methodology useful in exploring their characteristics. Eye-tracking methodology has the capacity to overcome some methodological difficulties We presented men and women with erotic and non-erotic pictures to examine the oft-published gender difference in self-reported attentional focus to erotica (i.e., men are most interested in body parts, and women are most interested in romantic context). After adjusting for scene region size, we found no gender differences in the amount of time that men and women looked at different aspects of an erotic image. Both men and women focused more on faces than on bodies or contextual cues. Significant differences were also found in attention to erotic and non-erotic pictures, providing support for eye-tracking\u27s usefulness in sexuality research. Results are interpreted using the Information Processing Approach, and future directions are suggested

Avoiding the sexual: Visual attention and distraction in dyspareunia

Dyspareunia, defined as genital pain associated with intercourse, holds the unenviable status of being one of the most prevalent yet understudied of the sexual dysfunctions. The coupling of sex and pain creates an interesting theoretical conundrum of clinical significance: are women with dyspareunia distracted from sexual stimuli (as the sexual dysfunction literature would suggest), or are they hypervigilant to sexual stimuli because these stimuli elicit thoughts and expectations of pain (as the pain literature would suggest)? Eye-tracking may be a uniquely relevant tool to measure potential differences in attention between women with and without dyspareunia. The current study tested distraction by presenting women with and without dyspareunia a series of erotic images, each containing a semantically-inconsistent object, while tracking their eye movements as they looked at them. Significant group differences were found for two of the three visual attention dependent variables (total number of fixations, total gaze duration), such that women with dyspareunia looked fewer times and for less total time at the sexual scene regions (i.e., the bodies) than both women with low sexual desire (p = .018, and p = .024, respectively) and the no-dysfunction control women (p = .003, and p \u3c .001, respectively). Women with dyspareunia were also found to have looked at the context scene region significantly more times and for longer periods of time than the no-dysfunction control women (p = .013, and p = .042, respectively). No group differences were found for average fixation duration, or any of the four memory variables (e.g., number of semantically inconsistent objects correctly recalled, number of intrusions, number correctly recognized, number of false positives). Results did not support the attentional hypervigilance that would have been consistent with the pain disorder conceptualization, but were potentially supportive of the attentional distraction hypothesis that is consistent with the sexual dysfunction theory. There appeared to be evidence of a cognitive avoidance process occurring in women with dyspareunia, such that sexual information may have triggered anxiety (due to fear of threat or harm), thus creating overall attentional avoidance of these scene regions. Limitations of the current study and future directions are provided

Palm oil: Understanding barriers to sustainable consumption

Palm oil is relatively inexpensive, versatile, and popular, generating great economic value for Southeast Asian countries. However, the growing demand for palm oil is leading to deforestation and biodiversity loss. The current study is the first to employ a capability-opportunity-motivation (COM-B) framework in green consumerism, to determine which capability, opportunity, and motivation factors strongly predict the intentional purchasing of sustainable palm oil products by Australian consumers (N = 781). Exploratory factor analysis revealed four main types of predictors of SPO purchasing–Pro-Green Consumption Attitudes, Demotivating Beliefs, Knowledge and Awareness, and Perceived Product Availability. Multiple regression revealed that these four factors explained 50% of the variability in SPO purchasing behaviour, out of which Knowledge and Awareness accounted for 18% of the unique variance. Perceived Product Availability and Pro-Green Consumption Attitudes were also significant predictors but accounted for only 2% and 1% of unique variance, respectively. These results provide a valuable foundation for designing behaviour change interventions to increase consumer demand for sustainable palm oil products

Australian Youth Mental Health and Climate Change Concern After the Black Summer Bushfires

Climate change and its effects present notable challenges for mental health, particularly for vul-nerable populations, including young people. Immediately following the unprecedented Black Summer bushfire season of 2019/2020, 746 Australians (aged 16–25 years) completed measures of mental health and perceptions of climate change. Results indicated greater presentations of depression, anxiety, stress, adjustment disorder symptoms, substance abuse, and climate change distress and concern, as well as lower psychological resilience and perceived distance to climate change, in participants with direct exposure to these bushfires. Findings highlight significant vulnerabilities of concern for youth mental health as climate change advances

Body region dissatisfaction predicts attention to body regions on other women

The proliferation of “idealized” (i.e., very thin and attractive) women in the media has contributed to increasing rates of body dissatisfaction among women. However, it remains relatively unknown how women attend to these images: does dissatisfaction predict greater or lesser attention to these body regions on others? Fifty healthy women (mean age = 21.8 years) viewed images of idealized and plus-size models; an eye-tracker recorded visual attention. Participants also completed measures of satisfaction for specific body regions, which were then used as predictors of visual attention to these regions on models. Consistent with an avoidance-type process, lower levels of satisfaction with the two regions of greatest reported concern (mid, lower torso) predicted less attention to these regions; greater satisfaction predicted more attention to these regions. While this visual attention bias may aid in preserving self-esteem when viewing idealized others, it may preclude the opportunity for comparisons that could improve self-estee

Negative Affect and Somatically Focused Anxiety in Young Women Reporting Pain With Intercourse

After a long history of privileging psychosexual etiological factors over pain and physiological processes, dyspareunia has enjoyed 1 decade of pointed research focused on the presenting problem of pain. Although it is generally acknowledged that certain affective and cognitive styles may play a role in an individual\u27s experience of pain in general, investigations into these questions specifically as they pertain to pain that occurs during sex are relatively scarce. To add to this growing body of knowledge, 759 women aged 18 to 29 completed questionnaires about current sexual functioning, gynecologic history, expectations about intercourse, and various personality and health-related anxiety measures. One-hundred-one women (14% of the sample) reported pain during intercourse on at least 50% of attempts. This group of women significantly differed from 536 women reporting pain on less than 10% of intercourse attempts on personality constructs related to emotional and relational well-being (e.g., neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness), as well as anxiety sensitivity, anxiety related to physical health concerns, and the amplification of somatosensory experiences. This affective and cognitive profile is consistent with previous studies that have found an attentional hypervigilance to health and pain-related information in women with dyspareunia, all of which could prove germane to cognitive-behavioral treatments targeting this disorder

Cultural worldviews and the perception of natural hazard risk in Australia

The cultural theory of risk proposes that risk perception is biased by sociality and the maintenance of four ways or life, or cultural worldviews: hierarchism, egalitarianism, individualism or communitarianism. This study examined whether cultural worldviews influenced the perception of the risk of bushfire, flood, storm and earthquake in Australia. A sample of 503 participants completed two questionnaires: cultural worldviews and natural hazard risk perception. Only 30% of respondents held strongly hierarchical, egalitarian, individualist or communitarian worldviews. Several aspects of natural hazard risk perception were predicted by cultural worldviews, but associations were weak. Individualists perceived greater risk of, and responsibility for, natural hazards possibly because they perceive them to be a disruptive threat that limits freedom. Egalitarians perceived greater risk from bushfire or storm, possibly because they understand the potential for social impacts from these events and favour collective response. Notions of control and mitigation of natural hazards were associated with hierarchism. Communitarianism was not a predictor of natural hazard risk perception. However, most people don't view natural hazards as a threat to their sociality and way of life. Single heuristics, such as the cultural theory of risk, are unlikely to capture the complexity of natural hazard risk perception in Australia

Visual attention to erotic images in women reporting pain with intercourse

The coupling of sex and pain creates an interesting theoretical conundrum of clinical significance: Are women with dyspareunia distracted from sexual stimuli, or are they hypervigilant to sexual stimuli because these stimuli elicit thoughts and expectations of pain? This study measured attention to sexual stimuli in women reporting persistent pain with intercourse, women reporting low sexual desire, and women reporting no sexual problems. Participants viewed a series of erotic images, each containing an object intended to distract from the erotic scene regions, while an eye tracker recorded their eye movements. Women with pain looked for shorter periods of time and fewer times at the sexual scene region than did both women with low sexual desire (p = .024 and p = .018, respectively) and the no-dysfunction control group (p \u3c .001 and p = .003, respectively). Women with pain also looked at the context (nonsexual) scene region significantly more times and for longer periods than did the no-dysfunction control women (p = .013 and p = .042, respectively). Results are interpreted to be potentially supportive of the cognitive distraction hypothesis associated with sexual dysfunction, with an additional component of cognitive avoidance of sexual stimuli for the women reporting sexual pain

Detection of differential viewing patterns to erotic and non-erotic stimuli using eye-tracking methodology

As a first step in the investigation of the role of visual attention in the processing of erotic stimuli, eye-tracking methodology was employed to measure eye movements during erotic scene presentation. Because eye-tracking is a novel methodology in sexuality research, we attempted to determine whether the eye-tracker could detect differences (should they exist) in visual attention to erotic and non-erotic scenes. A total of 20 men and 20 women were presented with a series of erotic and non-erotic images and tracked their eye movements during image presentation. Comparisons between erotic and non-erotic image groups showed significant differences on two of three dependent measures of visual attention (number of fixations and total time) in both men and women. As hypothesized, there was a significant Stimulus × Scene Region interaction, indicating that participants visually attended to the body more in the erotic stimuli than in the non-erotic stimuli, as evidenced by a greater number of fixations and longer total time devoted to that region. These findings provide support for the application of eye-tracking methodology as a measure of visual attentional capture in sexuality research. Future applications of this methodology to expand our knowledge of the role of cognition in sexuality are suggested