Conditioning and sexual behavior: A review

Sexual behavior is directed by a sophisticated interplay between steroid ho rmone actions in the brain that give rise to sexual arousability and experi ence with sexual reward that gives rise to expectations of competent sexual activity, sexual desire, arousal, and performance. Sexual experience allow s animals to form instrumental associations between internal or external st imuli and behaviors that lead to different sexual rewards. Furthermore, Pav lovian associations between internal and external stimuli allow animals to predict sexual outcomes. These two types of learning build upon instinctual mechanisms to create distinctive, and seemingly "automated," patterns of s exual response. This article reviews the literature on conditioning and sex ual behavior with a particular emphasis on incentive sequences of sexual be havior that move animals from distal to proximal with regard to sexual stim uli during appetitive phases of behavior and ultimately result in copulator y interaction and mating during consummatory phases of behavior. Accordingl y, the role of learning in sexual excitement, in behaviors that bring about the opportunity to mate, in courtship and solicitation displays, in sexual arousal and copulatory behaviors, in sexual partner preferences, and the s hort- and long-term influence of copulatory experience on sexual and reprod uctive function is examined. Although hormone actions set the stage for sex ual activity by generating the ability of animals to become sexually excite d and aroused, it is each animal's unique experience with sexual behavior a nd sexual reward that molds the strength of responses made toward sexual in centives. (C) 2001 Academic Press.