READING TIMES FOR EROTIC MATERIAL - THE PAUSE TO REFLECT

In a study designed to investigate possible mechanisms involved in pre viously identified gender differences in memory for sexual material, s ubjects read an erotic paragraph one sentence at a time. We then obtai ned reading times for each sentence. Reading times were longest for er otic sentences; romantic and neutral sentences did not differ signific antly from each other. Subjects' scores on the erotophobia-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 predict ed by reading time. Female subjects yielded better recognition accurac y than male subjects did, although males were more accurate at recogni zing erotic sentences. The results of the study suggest that reading e rotic material generates processes, perhaps emotional in nature, not s een in nonsexual material.