Heightened sexual arousal and physical aggression: An extension to females

In order to examine the effects of heightened sexual arousal upon aggression by females, subjects were first angered or not angered by a female confederate, next exposed to one of four types of stimuli (nonerotic scenes; pictures of seminude young males; pictures of nude males; pictures of couples engaged in various acts of lovemaking), and finally provided with an opportunity to aggress against the confederate by means of electric shock. In accordance with previous research conduced with males, it was hypothesized that exposure to mild erotic stimuli would inhibit subsequent aggression, while exposure to more arousing stimuli of this type would facilitate such behavior. Results offered support for both predictions. In addition, it was found that females responded with increased aggression to types of erotic stimuli previously found to inhibit such behavior by males.     

The role of plausibility in influencing environmental attributions

The aim of the study was to examine how plausibility influences attributions about the cause of perceived arousal. Subjects watched one of three arousing (humorous, sexual, aggressive) or a nonarousing televised program under conditions of appropriate or inappropriate interpersonal spacing. The subjects then completed a questionnaire indicating how crowded they felt and rating the movie on a number of dimensions. The results indicated that under close interpersonal distances, subjects felt less crowded while watching the arousing movies than while viewing the nonarousing movie. There were no differences in the experience of crowding between the movie conditions under the far interpersonal distance conditions. In addition, subjects rated the arousing movies as more arousing under close as opposed to far interpersonal distance conditions. Further, the humorous movie was viewed as more funny, and the violent movie was rated more violent under the close as opposed to the far conditions. Finally, there was a tendency to enjoy the arousing movies more under the close conditions, while the reverse effect was found for the nonarousing movie. It was argued that the arousing movies reduced the experience of crowding under close interpersonal conditions because subjects attributed their arousal to the movies rather than to the spatial restrictions. It was further suggested that the results showed that individuals will attribute their arousal to salient stimuli in their environment that could plausibly be sources of arousal. The results not only offer support for an attribution model of crowding, but they also show that depending on the individual's attribution, spatial conditions that can give rise to crowding may increase enjoyment of events in the environment.     

Memory of movies by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

How do animals remember what they see in daily life? The processes involved in remembering such visual information may be similar to those used in interpreting moving images on a monitor. In Experiment 1, 4 adult chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) were required to discriminate between movies using a movie-to-movie matching-to-sample task. All chimpanzees demonstrated the ability to discriminate movies from the very 1st session onward. In Experiment 2, the ability to retain a movie was investigated through a matching-to-sample task using movie stills. To test which characteristics of movies are relevant to memory, the authors compared 2 conditions. In the continuous condition, the scenes comprising the movie progressed gradually, whereas in the discrete condition, the authors introduced a sudden change from one scene to another. Chimpanzees showed a recency effect only in the discrete condition, suggesting that composition and temporal order of scenes were used to remember the movies.     

Evaluative ratings and attention across the life span: emotional arousal and gender

This study was designed to investigate the evolution of emotional processing over the whole adult life span as a function of stimulus arousal and participants’ gender. To this end, self-reported affective evaluation and attentional capture prompted by pleasant and unpleasant pictures varying in arousal were measured in a large sample of participants (n?=?211) balanced by gender and equally spread across seven decades from 20 to 90 years. Results showed age differences only for affective evaluation of pleasant stimuli, with opposite patterns depending on stimulus arousal. As age increased, low-arousing pleasant cues (e.g. images of babies) were experienced as more pleasant and arousing by both males and females, whereas high-arousing stimuli (e.g. erotic images) were experienced as less pleasant only by females. In contrast, emotional pictures (both pleasant and unpleasant) were effective at capturing attention in a similar way across participants, regardless of age and gender. Taken together, these findings suggest that specific emotional cues prompt different subjective responses across different age groups, while basic mechanisms involved in attentional engagement towards both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli are preserved in healthy ageing.     

Emotional state affects the initiation of forward gait

The aim of the current study was to determine the extent to which pleasant and unpleasant emotional states impact the initiation of forward gait. Participants initiated gait and walked for several steps following the presentation of low arousing pleasant, high arousing pleasant, low arousing unpleasant, high arousing unpleasant, and neutral pictures. Reaction time, displacement, and velocity of the center of pressure (COP) trajectory, and length and velocity of the first and second steps were calculated. Exposure to the highly arousing unpleasant pictures reduced reaction times compared to all other affective conditions. Compared to the low arousing unpleasant pictures, exposure to the high and low arousing pleasant pictures increased the displacement of the COP movement during the anticipatory postural adjustment phase of gait initiation. Additionally, exposure to the low arousing pleasant pictures increased the velocity of the COP movement during the anticipatory postural adjustment phase, compared to the high and low arousing unpleasant pictures. Exposure to the high and low arousing pleasant pictures increased the velocity of the first step relative to the low arousing unpleasant pictures. These findings demonstrate that highly arousing unpleasant emotional states accelerate the initial motor response, but pleasant emotional states generally facilitate the initiation of forward gait due to the approach-oriented directional salience of the movement. These findings extend the scope of the motivational direction hypothesis by demonstrating the effects of emotional reactivity on the initiation of gait.     

The perception of erotic arousal in men and women by same- and opposite-sex peers

Recent empirical evidence suggests that males and females differ very little in their response to erotica. Yet public opinion suggests that there are indeed differences: perceived differences. The present study explored two possibilities why these perceived differences continue to exist. One basis for such differences would be that both males and females see males as being more aroused (or arousable) by erotic stimuli, that is, a pure gender stereotype. A second possibility, suggested by Griffitt (1973), is that individuals who are asked to indicate how they think others would respond depend primarily on a projection process to make these attributions. The results of the study suggest that the latter process is more typical of males than of females; and that the former process is partially true for females, who tend as well to view all others (males and females) as being more aroused by erotic stimuli than they themselves are.This research was supported in part by Research Grant MH 16351-02 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the second author and is based in part on a paper delivered at the International Conference on Love and Attraction, Swansea, Wales, 1977. The authors wish to thank Glenn Littlepage and Rita Steifel for their assistance.     

Emotional state affects gait initiation in individuals with Parkinson’s disease

The purpose of the present study was to determine the impact of manipulating emotional state on gait initiation in persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and healthy older adults. Following the presentation of pictures that are known to elicit specific emotional responses, participants initiated gait and continued to walk for several steps at their normal pace. Reaction time, the displacement and velocity of the center of pressure (COP) trajectory during the preparatory postural adjustments, and length and velocity of the first two steps were measured. Analysis of the gait initiation measures revealed that exposure to (1) threatening pictures, relative to all other pictures, speeded the initiation of gait for PD patients and healthy older adults; (2) approach-oriented emotional pictures (erotic and happy people), relative to withdrawal-oriented pictures, facilitated the anticipatory postural adjustments of gait initiation for PD patients and healthy older adults, as evidenced by greater displacement and velocity of the COP movement; and (3) emotional pictures modulated gait initiation parameters in PD patients to the same degree as in healthy older adults. Collectively, these findings hold significant implications for understanding the circuitry underlying the manner by which emotions modulate movement and for the development of emotion-based interventions designed to maximize improvements in gait initiation for individuals with PD.     

Priming aggressive thoughts: The effect of the anticipation of a violent movie upon the aggressive behaviour of the spectators

In order to examine the effects of filmed violence expectancy, male subjects were induced to think that they would watch an aggressive or neutral movie. The behavioural measures of aggression of the potential viewers were collected via an interaction aggressometer that allowed subjects to manipulate the level of aversiveness of electric shocks supposedly delivered to others. Main results indicated that the mere anticipation of viewing an aggressive movie was already effective in producing the usual instigation effect of filmed violence. Evidence was also provided indicating that degree of physical provocation influenced subjects' aggressive responses. The results are discussed in terms of Berkowitz' (1984) cognitive-neoassociation analysis; anticipating a violent movie may prime aggressive behaviour.     

The effects of sexual and/or aggressive film exposure on helping, hostility, and attitudes about the sexes

After viewing an aggressive, sexually aggressive, erotic heterosexual, or control film, 129 females and 135 males expressed their willingness to help and hostility toward the male or female experimenter. Males extended the least help to the experimenter following the aggressive film and expressed more positive affect than females. Erotophilic males expressed slightly less hostility toward a female than a male experimenter. Erotophiles expressed more positive attitudes toward women and toward men after viewing either the rape film shown by a male experimenter or the erotic film shown by a female experimenter, compared to erotophobes. Among erotophobes, these two experimental conditions generally produced the most negative effects on general attitudes about the sexes. Affective responses to sex variations in dominant status and to aggressivity were employed to provide explanations for these results.     

Emotional Responses to Pictures of Oneself in Healthy College Age Females

Emotional responses related to self-perceptions were investigated in healthy college-aged females using a picture-viewing paradigm that consisted of four categories of pictures (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant, and full body pictures of themselves). The startle eye-blink reflex, facial EMG, and self-reported valence, arousal, and dominance measures were recorded for each picture. Startle reflex and facial EMG measures exhibited decreased activation for self-pictures compared to the other affective categories. Self-reports indicated self-pictures were rated as moderately pleasant, low arousing, and moderately dominant relative to the other affective picture categories. The findings of reduced startle blink reflex coupled with decreased activation for all facial EMG measures and the moderate self-report ratings suggest increased attentional processing for self-pictures. These findings provide an understanding of emotional responses to self-perceptions in healthy young females.     

The aging woman in popular film: Underrepresented, unattractive, unfriendly, and unintelligent

The present study examined 100 top-grossing motion pictures spanning from the 1940s through the 1980s (20 movies from each decade). Eight hundred and twenty-nine characters were rated on attractiveness, character goodness, intelligence, friendliness, socioeconomic status, romantic activity, and movie outcome. It was hypothesized that ageist and sexist stereotypes would interact such that (a) older female characters would be more underrepresented, and (b) more negatively portrayed, than their male contemporaries. Both hypotheses were supported. Implications regarding double standards for age, and the media’s propagation of beauty-related standards for females were discussed. We would like to express our appreciation to David Shaffer and Mary Ballard for comments on an earlier version of this article. We would also like to thank Colin Crothers, Jennifer Lund Smith, and Debbie Sabia for their assistance in the collection of this data.     

Inhibition and Disinhibition of Male Aggression Against Females: A Personality Moderator Approach

Three experiments examined the role of individual differences in combination with contextual factors hypothesized to moderate the level of hostility toward females evident in male participants' responses. In Study I, we manipulated survey context and examined the influence of participants' levels of rape myth acceptance (RMA) on self-reported rape likelihood. In Study 2, we examined the interactive role of target gender and participants' levels of sex guilt (SG) on aggression toward the target after exposure to an erotic film. Study 3 results suggested that high SG males have particularly negative responses to women (but not men) who enjoy erotic presentations, consistent with a "Jack-the-Ripper" interpretation of the Study 2 findings.     

Emotion, directed forgetting, and source memory

We investigated the role of emotion on item and source memory using the item method of directed forgetting (DF) paradigm. We predicted that emotion would produce source memory impairment because emotion would make it more difficult to distinguish between to-be-remembered (R items) and to-be-forgotten items (F items) by making memory strength of R and F items similar to each other. Participants were presented with negatively arousing, positively arousing, and neutral pictures. After each picture, they received an instruction to remember or forget the picture. At retrieval, participants were asked to recall both R and F items and indicate whether each item was an R or F item. Recall was higher for the negatively arousing than for the positively arousing or neutral pictures. Further, DF occurred for the positively arousing and neutral pictures, whereas DF was not significant for the negatively arousing pictures. More importantly, the negatively arousing pictures, particularly the ones with violent content, showed a higher tendency of producing misattribution errors than the other picture types, supporting the notion that negative emotion may produce source memory impairment, even though it is still not clear whether the impairment occurs at encoding or retrieval.     

Eighteen‐month‐olds’ memory for short movies of simple stories

This study investigated twenty four 18‐month‐olds’ memory for dynamic visual stimuli. During the first visit participants saw one of two brief movies (30 seconds) with a simple storyline displayed in four iterations. After 2 weeks, memory was tested in the visual paired comparison paradigm in which the familiar and the novel movie were contrasted simultaneously and displayed in two iterations for a total of 60 seconds. Eye‐tracking revealed that participants fixated the familiar movie significantly more than the novel movie, thus indicating memory for the familiar movie. Furthermore, time‐dependent analysis of the data revealed that individual differences in the looking‐patterns for the first and second iteration of the movies were related to individual differences in productive vocabulary. We suggest that infants’ vocabulary may be indicative of their ability to understand and remember the storyline of the movies, thereby affecting their subsequent memory.     

Contrafreeloading and the value of control over visual stimuli in Japanese macaques (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Macaca fuscata</Emphasis>)

Contrafreeloading, which means that animals work for food even though identical food is freely available, has been reported in animals’ feeding behavior. This phenomenon has been assumed to be explained by the information primacy model, in which the information about a food resource as well as the food itself is valuable for animals. This study confirmed a contrafreeloading-like phenomenon using movies as rewards rather than food in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) and investigated the motivational system that exists behind contrafreeloading. In the experiment, movies that were presented dependently on subjects’ responses (earned movies) and movies that were presented automatically (free movies) were supplied simultaneously. The subjects continued to make responses to obtain the presentation of the earned movies although identical movies were available as free movies. These results provide the first evidence of contrafreeloading that occurs with movie rewards. The motivation maintaining the contrafreeloading behavior for movies may be control over the environment according to the competence theory.     

The naked truth: Positive,arousing distractors impair rapid target perception

Emotional stimuli tend to capture and hold attention more than non-emotional stimuli do. Aversive pictures have been found to impair perception of visual targets even after the emotional information has disappeared. The benefits of such interlinked emotion and attention systems have sometimes been discussed within an evolutionary framework, with a survival advantage attributed to early detection of threatening stimuli. However, consistent with recent suggestions that attention is drawn to arousing stimuli regardless of whether they are positive or negative, the current investigation found that erotic distractors—generally rated as both pleasing and arousing—consistently elicited a transient “emotion-induced blindness” similar to that caused by aversive distractors (Experiment 1). This effect persisted despite performance-based monetary incentives to ignore the distractors (Experiment 2), and following attentional manipulations that reduced interference from aversive images (Experiment 3). The findings indicate that positively arousing stimuli can spontaneously cause emotion-induced deficits in visual processing, just as aversive stimuli can.