The Effects of Autobiographic Sexual Memory Recall on the Sexual Response of Sexually Functional Men

Abstract

In this experimental study, we investigated how recalling positive, negative, and affectively neutral autobiographic sexual experiences in their personal history affected the current sexual response of sexually functional male volunteers. Based on an attentional-capacity account of sexual arousal, we predicted that affectively charged autobiographic sexual memory recall, both with negative and positive valence, would negatively impact genital arousal, compared to recalling affectively neutral sexual experiences. We expected that subjective sexual arousal would not be differentially affected by emotional memory valence. We measured subjective and genital response to erotic video fragments in sexually functional volunteers (N=24) in a within-subjects, repeated-measures design. For the memory manipulation, participants received instructions to visualize and mentally re-experience positive, negative, and neutral sexual episodes from autobiographic memory. Memory instructions were found to result in the expected affective states. As predicted, compared to recalling neutral memory, mean genital response was significantly lower during recalling positive and negative memory. However, contrary to prediction, subjective sexual arousal was affected, when multilevel analysis was performed, including a time effect. The implications of the findings were discussed with respect to the advancement of theory and therapeutic intervention.