Cognitive distraction in female sexual arousal.

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study was designed to assess the relationship between subjective and physiological measures of female sexual arousal during the presentation of an erotic stimulus and when an erotic stimulus was presented concurrently with a distracting stimulus. Twenty‐four females were exposed to baseline, erotic stimulus, and erotic stimulus plus distraction conditions while subjective and vaginal photoplethysmographic indices of sexual arousal were monitored. The erotic stimulus was an audiotaped description of explicit sexual activity, primarily from the perspective of a female. The cognitive distraction consisted of a series of visually presented, simple addition tasks. The results suggested significant increases in subjective and photoplethysmographic measures of sexual arousal from baseline to erotic stimulus conditions and significant decreases in both measures of sexual arousal when the distraction task was added to the erotic stimulus. Correlations between subjective and photoplethysmographic measures of sexual arousal were nonsignificant during the erotic condition, but significant when the distraction task was added to the erotic stimulus. The women were divided into “frequently” and “infrequently” orgasmic groups to further investigate the relationship between subjective and physiological measures of sexual arousal. Analyses revealed no between‐group differences in subjective or photoplethysmographic measures during any condition. Correlations between the two measures of sexual arousal were significant during all conditions for the “frequently” orgasmic groups and nonsignificant during all conditions for the “infrequently” orgasmic group.