Current research on viewing time measures of sexual attraction fail to explore potential confounding variables of viewing time. One viewing time measure, the LOOK, has been shown to be reliable over time and generally correlated with self-reported sexual orientation but has been unable to differentiate between a non-offending group and an offending group of individuals. This study utilizes the LOOK to examine the relationship between viewing time and a potential confounding variable of viewing time, beauty, using two constructs of beauty (facial beauty and full-body beauty). Facial beauty scores were created by measuring the degree of adherence to four universal standards of beauty shown to correlate with subjective estimates of attractiveness (Schmid, Marx, & Samal, 2006). Given the subjective nature of beauty when viewing the whole body, participants of the study rated the beauty of each LOOK image in its entirety. No significant correlation was found between facial beauty scores and beauty ratings, suggesting these are unrelated constructs. Significant correlations were found between facial beauty scores and male viewing time, and between male beauty ratings and male viewing time. These correlations suggest that further research exploring the extent to which estimates of beauty confound measures of viewing time may increase their discriminative ability and could aid in the development of a norm-referenced procedures for screening and diagnosis.

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Advanced prostate cancer (PCa) patients are offered androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) to control their cancer’s growth. ADT impairs sexual function and the sleep patterns of ADT patients. Since ADT deprives patients of estrogen, and supplemental estrogen reduces such problems in menopausal women, I studied whether administering estrogen reduces these problems for castrated male rats as a model for PCa patients on ADT. First, I tested how early versus late estradiol treatment after castration influenced rats’ sexual behaviour. Estradiol increases mounting behaviour to comparable levels regardless of when the treatment was started after castration, suggesting that estrogen’s ability to restore male sexual interest is insensitive to a delay since castration. Secondly, to understand the biological basis of these behavioural effects, I examined brain and muscle tissues from the same animals. Specifically, I compared changes in 1) estrogen receptors (ERs) and c-Fos protein (a neuronal activation marker) levels in brain areas controlling sex behavior; 2) ERs levels in pelvic floor muscles, important for erection; and 3) ERs levels in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Prolonged castration increases ER? levels in the preoptic area (POA), a key brain area that regulates mating behaviour, and estradiol treatment reduced these effects. In the POA, mating-induced c-Fos expression was not affected by estradiol regardless of when the treatment began post-castration. Estrogen may upregulate ERs in pelvic floor muscles, and downregulate ERs in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, depending on administration time after castration. These findings suggest that mating activates POA neurons, and this activation induces mounting only in the presence of estrogen. Additionally, the duration after castration influences ER autoregulation in the pelvic floor muscles, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex in response to estradiol. Lastly, I studied how estrogen modulates the sleep-wake behaviour of orchiectomized rats. Estradiol promotes baseline wakefulness during the dark period and prevents castration-induced impairment in sleep recovery after sleep deprivation. These findings suggest that estradiol may positively influence the sleep-wake behaviour of castrated males. Collectively, I demonstrate that estrogen administered to castrated rats improves sexual and sleep functions. It may similarly improve the quality of life of PCa patients on ADT.

The LOOK is an iOS based iPad app designed to measure viewing time as an estimate of sexual interest. Participants used a 7-point Likert scale to rate 154 images based on sexual attractiveness. The images belonged to 14 differentiated gender and age categories from infants to elderly adults. Before rating each image participants were asked to complete an additional task of locating and touching a small dot found in one of the four corners of the screen. This was included to make sure that participants we attending to each image, and to add another level of information to the results.The purpose of this study was to establish the expected reference group viewing time expected patterns and temporal stability using the LOOK, for nonpedophilic, exclusively heterosexual, college-age males and females. 56 male and 75 female undergraduate students from BYU psychology classes participated. The expected patterns were established and are similar to previously established sexual attraction patterns with slight difference due to the additional categories in the LOOK. The results are broken up into three different sections: dot time (the time from when the image appears to when the dot is touched), rate time (the time from when the dot is touched to when the image is rated), and total time (the combined dot and rate time). Results of the analysis indicate that dot time stability is 96.43% for males and 100% for females. Rate time stability is 64.29% for males, and 73.33% for females. And the total temporal stability is 98.21% for males and 100% for females.

The LOOK, an iOS app, is a viewing time measure used to assess sexual interest. The measure is based on the assumption that sexual interest can be assessed by the amount of time a participant spends looking at an image. The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of the LOOK, a newly developed viewing time instrument, to accurately screen and diagnose individuals with deviant sexual interest. The profiles of known sexual offenders were compared to norm-referenced profiles of an exclusively heterosexual, non-pedophilic, male, college student population. Researchers were not able to find a fair constant multiplier that would allow for a positive screen of our offender sample while not over identifying our non-offender sample. Instead a graph was generated which showed the trends of offenders were closely related to those of non-offenders using Fischer’s Chi-square model. Additionally, when looking at the predictive validity of being able to identify victim demographics of known perpetrators based on Fischer’s Chi Square residuals, only 15.9% were found to have offense histories that were consistent with their profiles on the LOOK. The LOOK, using Fischer’s Chi-square model does not seem to be able to differentiate offenders from non-offenders. Future studies may include looking at the predictive nature of ipsative data.

The LOOK is a viewing time measure that seeks to assess sexual interest patterns and is currently in development at Brigham Young University. This instrument is intended to aid current efforts to prevent child sexual abuse by identifying deviant sexual interests. A recently presented study on a similar viewing time measure has raised concerns regarding individuals' ability to falsify sexual interest patterns on average. This study seeks to extend this falsification research to the LOOK in order to assess if falsification of this measure is possible by means of speed or pretense. Participants were exclusively heterosexual non-pedophilic males and females. Sexual interest patterns for 151 females and 150 males were used. These individuals were distributed into either a control group or one of four possible falsification conditions for each gender. The study used Fischer's Chi-square scoring procedure to examine the significance of differences between the averaged patterns of sexual interest obtained from falsification groups and average expected interest patterns of control groups. Results of this study found that 4 of 8 falsification groups were able to significantly falsify sexual interest patterns on average. It appears that, on average, everyone in the pretense groups were capable of falsifying results. Men and women were able to emulate response patterns of the opposite gender regardless of whether given information about the basic mechanism of visual response time instruments. It is concluded that while the LOOK seems to possess a degree of sensitivity toward falsification efforts, improvements are still needed in order to increase its ability to detect test-taker's efforts to falsify results on average.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a measure of viewing time that uses non-erotic visual stimuli can differentiate between frequent users and infrequent users of pornography. Thirty-six male participants were classified as infrequent pornography users and 37 as frequent users. Participants completed a questionnaire and were asked to rate a variety of images, both male and female of varying ages, on their sexual attractiveness. Individuals were timed as to how long they looked at each image. The groups were then compared based upon their viewing time of several categories. No statistically significant differences were detected. The temporal stability of the measure was also investigated. Researchers found that for the two groups, high correlations were found with juvenile females and adult females, somewhat strong correlations for small male child and pre-juvenile female, and relatively weak correlations for adult males, small female child, juvenile male, and pre-juvenile male. Researchers also attempted to differentiate the two groups based upon their temporal stability. A statistically significant difference between the groups was found with their viewing times of pre-juvenile females; however, the researchers caution the readers about its interpretation. Researchers concluded that perhaps the viewing time measure used in this study was not sufficiently sensitive enough to differentiate on pornography use. They indicated that perhaps viewing time measures utilizing erotic visual stimuli may be more effective in detecting such a difference. The researchers also speculated that there may be differences between pornography users and non pornography users and that pornography may not be the factor responsible for causing callousness towards women, acceptance of rape myths, and a reduction in sexual and marital satisfaction. The researchers suggested that there may be another factor responsible for causing these negative effects and also predisposes an individual to heavy pornography use.

Given that the Affinity 2.0 is a largely untested instrument that purports to measure sexual attraction, it was unknown whether or not the instrument is temporally stable and would provide a characteristic response curve for normal heterosexual male sexual interest. This study examined the Affinity 2.0, a newly standardized viewing time (VT) instrument that purports to measure sexual interest. More specifically, the Affinity 2.0 was examined in regard to its temporal stability and ability to generate a characteristic curve for non-pedophilic, exclusively heterosexual male interests. This examination was carried out by administering the Affinity 2.0 twice on a sample of 88 self-reportedly non-pedophilic, exclusively heterosexual men. The results of this study find the Affinity 2.0 to be mildly to moderately temporally stable and capable of rendering a characteristic sexual interest curve. Subjects created a typical profile that showed longest viewing time to images of adult and juvenile females with low viewing times to all other categories of attractors. Implications for norm-referenced decision making are discussed.

The Affinity 2.0 has been recently upgraded to the Affinity 2.5. Both instruments purport to measure sexual interest using viewing time as a form of measurement using non-pornographic images of people of varying ages and genders. The Affinity 2.5 increased the number of slides by 42.9%. This increase may have impacted the expected Chi square weights established for the Affinity 2.0 for non-pedophilic, exclusively heterosexual males. The purpose of this study was to create new expected Chi square weights for the Affinity 2.5 for non-pedophilic, exclusively heterosexual males. Additionally, this study re-examined the temporal stability of the Affinity 2.0 using a Chi-square procedure instead of traditional correlational procedures. The Affinity 2.5 was administered to 50 self-reported non-pedophilic, exclusively heterosexual males. The results of this study indicated that the expected Chi-square weights created for the Affinity 2.5 were extremely similar to the weights created for the Affinity 2.0. The re-examination of the temporal stability of the Affinity 2.0 using Chi-square procedures demonstrated that 76.6% of subjects were consistent in their responses from time-1 to time-2.

The Affinity, an instrument designed to measure sexual interest using viewing time, has recently been upgraded from version 2.0 to version 2.5. The Affinity presents slides depicting non-pornographic images of people varying by age and gender. The expected Chi square weights established for Affinity 2.0 for non-pedophilic, exclusively heterosexual females may have been impacted by Affinity 2.5's 42.9% increase in the number of slides. There were two purposes to this study. The first was to establish new expected Chi square weights for non-pedophilic, exclusively heterosexual females using Affinity 2.5. The second purpose was to employ a Chi square procedure (in place of traditional correlational methods) to re-examine the temporal stability of the Affinity 2.0. Data from 63 participants, who were administered the Affinity 2.5, were analyzed. Results of the analyses revealed notable similarity between the expected Chi square weights created for Affinity 2.5 and those for Affinity 2.0. The re-examination of Affinity 2.0 temporal stability using Chi-square procedures suggested that 86% of subjects were consistent in their responses from time 1 to time 2.