The Effects of Viewing Sexual Films on Memory Performance
Emily Tam

Download the Paper (PDF format) - January 8, 2009 Tell a colleague about it. Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing. This work has been peer reviewed.

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.