Hoffmann Heather
Department of Psychology, Knox College, 2 East South St., Box 59, Galesburg, IL, 61401, USA.
Arch Sex Behav. 2025 Apr 22. doi: 10.1007/s10508-025-03141-2.
Individual differences in the strength of human sexual conditioning in the context of excitatory (CE) as well as inhibitory (CI) learning were explored in the present study. Consistent with as reported by Gray (1972), I hypothesized a positive correlation between sexual excitability scores (SES) and the strength of excitatory appetitive sexual conditioning and impaired inhibitory appetitive sexual conditioning as well as a positive correlation between sexual inhibition (SIS1 and/or 2) and the strength of inhibitory appetitive sexual conditioning and impaired excitatory appetitive sexual conditioning. A total of 26 female-bodied and 27 male-bodied people served as participants. Sexual conditioning occurred outside of the laboratory. Specifically, over a two-week period, participants masturbated to orgasm after smelling either a vial with geranium or basil essential oil (CS+/CE odor). They also engaged in a comparable nonsexual behavior after smelling the other (CS-/CI) odor. Subjects provided baseline and post conditioning measures of odor affect, subjective and genital arousal to the odors, motivational approach toward the CSs, and unconditioned stimulus (US) expectancy along with SIS/SES scores, a measure of compulsive sexual behavior, and a measure of masturbatory guilt. Medium to large effect size CE and CI learning occurred when assessing affective ratings and subjective arousal but only for females, although there were similar trends for males. Medium to large effect size CE but not CI learning occurred in terms of genital arousal for both males and females. For female-bodied participants, the present study found individual differences in sexual conditioning consistent with Gray's predictions. SES scores negatively predicted CI learning and SIS1 scores negatively predicted CE learning, at least for some measures. Conditioned responses seemed stronger in this study compared to previous human sexual conditioning research. The present results support the use of a sexual conditioning framework for understanding sexual response patterns.
在本研究中，探讨了人类在兴奋性（CE）和抑制性（CI）学习背景下性条件反射强度的个体差异。与格雷（1972年）所报道的一致，我假设性兴奋分数（SES）与兴奋性食欲性性条件反射的强度呈正相关，与抑制性食欲性性条件反射受损呈正相关，以及性抑制（SIS1和/或2）与抑制性食欲性性条件反射的强度呈正相关，与兴奋性食欲性性条件反射受损呈正相关。共有26名女性身体和27名男性身体的人作为参与者。性条件反射在实验室外进行。具体而言，在两周的时间里，参与者在闻到装有天竺葵或罗勒精油的小瓶（CS+/CE气味）后自慰至高潮。他们在闻到另一种（CS-/CI）气味后也进行了类似的非性行为。受试者提供了气味影响的基线和条件反射后测量、对气味的主观和生殖器唤醒、对CSs的动机趋近以及无条件刺激（US）预期，以及SIS/SES分数、强迫性行为测量和自慰内疚测量。在评估情感评分和主观唤醒时，出现了中等到大的效应量CE和CI学习，但仅适用于女性，尽管男性也有类似趋势。在生殖器唤醒方面，男性和女性都出现了中等到大的效应量CE学习，但没有CI学习。对于女性身体的参与者，本研究发现性条件反射的个体差异与格雷的预测一致。SES分数对CI学习有负向预测作用，SIS1分数对CE学习有负向预测作用，至少在某些测量中是这样。与之前的人类性条件反射研究相比，本研究中的条件反应似乎更强。本研究结果支持使用性条件反射框架来理解性反应模式。
