Sexual Content-Induced Delay With Double-Entendre Words

Seventy-three men and 72 women made lexical decisions to target words that followed sentences constructed so that the last word was a sexual double-entendre. Prime target relatedness, erotic versus nonerotic target, stimulus onset asynchrony, and participant's gender were varied in a between-subjects design. A second analysis that substituted sentence context for prime target relationship also was conducted. Data were collected on the emotionality and social acceptability of priming sentences and target words. Results revealed that, as with previous research on neutral words, prime target relatedness facilitated lexical decisions. Additionally, there was evidence of slowing in making lexical decisions when erotic material was presented or was part of a contextual bias. This delay was accentuated in women. A model that proposes that sexual words evoke a more complex processing sequence is presented. The model suggests that appraisal and checking or editing mechanisms, which are accentuated in women, help explain the phenomenon. Portions of this work was submitted by the junior author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in Psychology at Louisiana State University     

Skin conductance and heart rate in women with premenstrual syndrome

This study investigated the effects of the menstrual cycle phase on certain components of autonomic arousal and task performance. Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) women and matched controls (non-PMS) were tested both premenstrually and postmenstrually. The conditions selected were a) the presentation of 10 tones, b) a proofreading performance task, and c) a word-association learning task. Skin conductance and heart rate were continuously monitored. No significant effects were found on baseline physiological measures, or on proofreading or word-association performance. A significant point in cycle effect for skin conductance and HR orienting response to the tones was found showing smaller HR and skin conductance responses postmenstrually. Several significant PMS classifications by point in menstrual cycle interactions were found. These indicated that, paradoxically, the non-PMS subjects showed higher spontaneous skin conductance responding during the word association task and higher skin conductance responses to tones prior to menses. While in contrast, PMS subjects yielded higher responding on the same measures postmenstrually. On stress ratings, PMS subjects reported experiencing more stress postmenstrually. Results are discussed in terms of the possible role of expectancy factors and inaccurate self-monitoring.