Enhancement of experienced sexual arousal in response to erotic stimuli through misattribution of unrelated residual excitation.

TLDR

Recovery from exercise produces three distinct phases of physiological excitation, with residual arousal being recognized, ignored, or absent as subjects progress through the phases. Participants viewed an erotic film during one of the three post‑exercise recovery phases to test how residual excitation affects sexual arousal. Viewing the film during the second recovery phase led to greater sexual arousal and more positive evaluations, supporting excitation‑transfer theory that residual excitation amplifies responses to unrelated stimuli when arousal cannot be attributed to its source.

Abstract

In a pretest, three phases of recovery from a standard physical exercise were determined. In Phase 1, subjects experienced high levels of physiological excitation and recognized that their arousal was due to exercise. In Phase 2, subjects maintained substantial excitatory residues from the exercise but felt that their arousal had returned to base level. In Phase 3, subjects' excitatory responses had decayed, and they knew they had recovered from the exercise. Subjects in the main experiment were exposed to an erotic film in the first, second, or third recovery phase after performing the exercise. Subjects viewing the film during the second recovery phase reported being more sexually aroused by the film and evaluated the film more positively than subjects in the other two conditions. Counter to the notion of arousal as a simple energizer of all behavior, these findings were interpreted as supporting excitation-transfer theory, which posits that residual excitation enhances emotional responses to unrelated, immediately present stimuli only when the prevailing arousal cannot be attributed to its actual source.