An experimental investigation of preorgasmic reconditioning and postorgasmic deconditioning.
Pairing stimuli with orgasmic timing alters erotic value fast, but the effect disappears without upkeep.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers paired pictures with the moment just before orgasm. They paired other pictures with the recovery phase after orgasm.
Adults without disabilities served as participants. The team measured physical signs of sexual arousal to see if the pictures gained or lost erotic value.
What they found
Pictures linked to the plateau phase became more exciting. Pictures linked to the refractory phase became less exciting.
Two to three months later the effects were gone. The body had extinguished the learned response.
How this fits with other research
Bieniek et al. (2023) also used pairing. They showed that social or token rewards, not just words, can shape pain reports. Both studies prove that timing of consequences can re-value a stimulus.
Reynolds (1968) found that shock punishment worked only in the exact lab set-up. The erotic conditioning faded the same way once the special context ended.
Cohen (1991) saw that d-amphetamine flattened birds’ response to paired stimuli but did not boost it. Likewise, the new erotic value in Santi (1978) wore off without extra help.
Why it matters
You can briefly change what a client finds attractive or aversive by pairing it with strong reinforcers. For lasting change you will need booster sessions or intermittent pairings. Plan maintenance from the start.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The effects of pre- and postorgasmic presentation of moderately erotic cues were assessed in an analogue study. Eight heterosexual male volunteers (18 to 23 years) participated in three assessment (baseline, termination-of-treatment, and two- to three-month followup) and eight masturbatory conditioning sessions. Three slides of nude females of initially equal erotic value were paired respectively with the plateau, refractory, and resolution phases of the subjects' sexual cycles. Over treatment, stimuli paired with the plateau phase increased significantly in penile tumescence indices of eroticism; conversely, stimuli paired with the refractory phase decreased significantly. The conditioned effects on tumescence were largely extinguished at followup. While treatment did not alter short-term subjective indices of eroticism, stimuli presented during the refractory phase were rated significantly less erotic than the other stimuli at followup. The findings suggest that the "pairing" model of orgasmic conditioning is insufficient to account for previously reported clinical findings. A broader conceptualization of the mechanisms of orgasmic conditioning, and implications for treatment are discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1978 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1978.11-23