The Effects of Viewing Sexual Films on Memory Performance

This research aims to study contextual memory under different emotional stimuli. Participants were asked to watch films on mute. These films were pre-categorized as different emotions(happy, neutral, arousing, negative, and sexual). At the same time, they were presented with neutral words on an mp3 player auditorily. In the end, they were asked to recall as many words as possible. The words recalled were then matched with the scenes it belonged to and calculated for statistical significance. An ANOVA revealed statistical significance across films, most significantly when comparing negative to neutral films, and negative to sexual films. This suggests sexual stimulus can enhance memory performance. Copyright Information: All rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. Contact the author or original publisher for any necessary permissions. eScholarship is not the copyright owner for deposited works. Learn more at http://www.escholarship.org/help_copyright.html#reuse The Effects of Viewing Sexual Films on Memory Performance Emily Ka Yi Tam Department of Psychology University of California, Berkeley Introduction Context memory is defined as the peripheral or background information associated with time, people, or thought related to an event. One distinguishing feature of this research is not the memory performance on sexual content, but memory performance under emotional influence. More importantly, this research reveals memory performance using sex as an emotional stimulus. Finding the correlation of sex as an emotional stimulus and memory performance in comparison to other emotional stimuli can increase understanding of memory for post-traumatic events that are sexually-related such as rape and sexual abuse. Previous studies have found the correlation between arousal and memory performance. Researchers such as Otani et al. (2007) and Anderson and Shimamura (2005) have found that general arousal actually increases memory performance. The Anderson and Shimamura study found that a generally arousing film clip (car chasing film clip) enhanced context memory, while negatively arousing film clip (hospital film depicting an arm amputation) reduced context memory. Cognitive function was also found to be affected by an individual’s sexual desire. In a study done by Conaglen and Evans (2006), cognitive processing was examined in response to sexual and non-sexual pictorial stimuli. The study found that people with lower sexual desire completed the picture recognition task more quickly, and sexual content of the pictorial stimuli delayed cognitive processes (Conaglen and Evans, 2006). Although the terms sex and arousal are often linked together, their physical properties are different. Basson (2006) demonstrated that people can be aroused without feeling the sexual desire. Although arousal is often linked to sexuality, there has yet to be a study on the association between memory performance and sexuality. In addition, exploring in the field of sexuality is a step to elimination of social stigma and misconceptions. Since arousal is memory enhancing, and sex is often linked to arousal, these past evidence gave rise to the hypothesis that sexual film clip is also memory enhancing. Method Participants Fifty two students (twenty six men, twenty six women) from the University of California were paid or received course credit for participation in the experiment. The participants ranged between 19-30 years old. Stimuli and Design Two minute films characterized as neutral film, positive film, negative film, arousal film, and sexual film were presented to participants (total film watching time is approximately ten minutes). The neutral film was a commercial cooking video of someone mixing a batter (with face not shown in film). The positive film displayed penguins running and jumping onto glaciers in a playful manner. The negative film portrayed a surgical arm amputation. The arousal film showed a car chasing scene in which a car is driven through city streets and pedestrian sidewalks. The sexual film depicted a heterosexual couple fore-playing and having intercourse. The neutral, positive, negative, and arousal films were used in the Anderson and Shimamura (2005) study, and was originally developed by Fredrickson and Kahneman (1993). The sexual film was rated in the Shimamura Laboratory by graduate students and faculty. The films were recorded on videocassettes and presented on a combination TV-VCR player with the audio on mute. To reduce primacy and recency effects, there were five versions of the same videos, with each film rotating to become the first and the last film. Memory performance was assessed using a word list composed of 60 neutral words not associated with the film clips. The word list was recorded on an mp3 voice recorder by a female voice. Procedure In study phase, participants watched the four films with audio on ABSTRACT: This research aims to study contextual memory under different emotional stimuli. Participants were asked to watch films on mute. These films were pre-categorized as different emotions (happy, neutral, arousing, negative, and sexual). At the same time, they were presented with neutral words on an mp3 player auditorily. In the end, they were asked to recall as many words as possible. The words recalled were then matched with the scenes it belonged to and calculated for statistical significance. An ANOVA revealed statistical significance across films, most significantly when comparing negative to neutral films, and negative to sexual films. This suggests sexual stimulus can enhance memory performance. W A R T E C H • S P R I N G 2 0 0 8 • W A R T E C H