Visual Attention to Sexual Stimuli in Women With Clinical, Subclinical, and Normal Sexual Functioning: An Eye-Tracking Study

Abstract

BackgroundVisual attention to sexual stimuli is an important means to facilitate sexual arousal and is thereby relevant for healthy sexual functioning. Experimental studies suggest that sexual dysfunction is associated with less attention toward sexual stimuli. AimThe goal of this study was to use an eye-tracking-based free-viewing paradigm to investigate whether women in the clinical range of sexual function attend to a genital area in visual sexual stimuli differently than women with subclinical sexual function or those with normal sexual functioning. MethodsToward this goal, 69 women (Mage = 27.77, SD = 8.00, range = 19–54) with clinical (n = 30), subclinical (n = 23), and normal (n = 16) levels of sexual functioning watched a series of 10 pictures depicting heterosexual couples during vaginal intercourse while their eye movements were recorded. Each picture was presented twice—once with a distracting object (eg, a to-do list or household appliance) present in the picture and once without—for 8 seconds, each. Outcomes5 eye-tracking measures indicative of different aspects of initial and sustained attention were analyzed. ResultsAs hypothesized, 3 out of 5 eye-tracking measures (ie, first fixation duration, number of first fixations, and total fixation duration) indicated that women in the clinical group attended less to the genital area in the pictures than women with normal sexual functioning. For 2 indices (ie, first fixation duration and total fixation duration), women with subclinical (vs normal) sexual functioning also attended less to the genital area. In contrast to our hypothesis, the presence of a distracting object did not influence attention to the genital area in either of the sexual function groups. Clinical ImplicationsThis study provides further evidence of the role of attentional biases in sexual dysfunction in women. Strengths and LimitationsEye-tracking methodology allows for a continuous measurement of visual attention; this is one of the first studies using this methodology to assess differences in visual attention in women with and without sexual dysfunction. However, the cross-sectional nature of this study prevents causal interpretation of findings. ConclusionFuture studies should use experimental paradigms to determine the causal role of visual attention for the development or maintenance of sexual dysfunction.Velten J, Milani S, Margraf J, et al. Visual Attention to Sexual Stimuli in Women With Clinical, Subclinical, and Normal Sexual Functioning: An Eye-Tracking Study. J Sex Med 2021;18:144–155.