Reading Times for Erotic Material: The Pause to Reflect

Abstract

Abstract In a study designed to investigate possible mechanisms involved in previously identified gender differences in memory for sexual material, subjects read an erotic paragraph one sentence at a time. We then obtained reading times for each sentence. Reading times were longest for erotic sentences; romantic and neutral sentences did not differ significantly from each other. Subjects' scores on the erotopho-bia-erotophilia dimension were correlated with reading time. In an unexpected finding, those subjects with higher erotophobic scores read all categories of sentences more slowly. Recognition memory performance was not predicted by reading time. Female subjects yielded better recognition accuracy than male subjects did, although males were more accurate at recognizing erotic sentences. The results of the study suggest that reading erotic material generates processes, perhaps emotional in nature, not seen in nonsexual material.