T-28

DEVIANT SEXUAL INTERESTS: THE EYES TELL THE STORY

Informing Best Practices in the Assessment of Sexually Deviant Interests using Viewing Time:
The Affinity


Carmen L.Z. Gress, Ph.D., Ministry of Public Safety & Solicitor General
D. Richard Laws, Ph.D., Pacific Design Research
David Glasgow, M.Clin.Psychol., Carlton-Glasgow Partnership


Critically important to effectively treating and managing sexual offending is the identification or
validation of an offenders deviant sexual interests. The nature of their sexual interests is what demarcates
repetitive sexual offenders from non-offenders and lower risk offenders (Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2005;
Lalumire & Quinsey, 1994; Laws, Hanson, Osborn, & Greenbaum, 2000). This information leads to enhanced
risk assessments and therefore (a) informed court decisions on sentencing and dangerous offender designations,
(b) treatment considerations of focus, methods, and intensity, and (c) management decisions by probation and
parole officers. What we know about an individuals sexual interest depends on three main sources:
documented behavior, the forthcoming nature of a client when discussing his or her preferences, and the results
from sexual interest assessments. When combined, the completed picture can be invaluable.
The validity of sexual interest assessment results depends on the quality of research investigating and
substantiating the method used. The method of interest discussed in this paper is viewing time. Viewing time
holds promise in differentiating different types of sexual offenders, yet there is a lack of substantiated
psychometric information, which limits its use. For example, Sachsenmaier and Gress (2009) examined the Abel
Assessment for Sexual Interests 2, a commercialized viewing time measure and in their summary identified a
variety of issues, including five areas, common to all commercially available viewing time measures, lacking
information:
1. Peer reviewed published statistical information available for clinicians.
2. Reliable scoring procedures clear methods of interpretation.
3. Analysis of the predictive ability of the scoring procedures.
4. Research on examining the influence of knowing what the procedure does.
5. Research on examining the possibility of faking a sexual interest, i.e. can a heterosexual male
interested in adults manipulate his responses to look like an interest in young boys?

Affinity is a computer-based viewing time assessment of sexual interest originally developed to assess
sex offenders with intellectual disabilities. The client rank orders a series of archetypal figures of males and
females of various ages then views a series of photographs of males and females (clothed and non-erotic) while
viewing time is unobtrusively measured. The measure is clean and straightforward, yet the research is less so
and interpretation can be difficult.
This poster provides a brief overview of the current viewing time literature and methodological issues.
Then it describes, with new data, the expansion of Affinity to assess offenders with normal intelligence and
address the first three of the main issues listed above, namely clear reporting of psychometric properties,
scoring and interpretation, and predictive ability. The data consists of 205 Affinity assessments of adult males
convicted of a hands-on child molestation offense, possession of child pornography, or online Internet
solicitation of a minor. Average age is 32, standard deviation of 7.3. In addition there is 35 assessments of
juvenile males, average age is 17, standard deviation of 2.1. Scoring methods under investigation are mean
difference scores, standardized scores, and stimulus generalization gradients (Blanchard, 2010).



Phallometric Responses to Consenting Sex, Rape and Violence in Relation to Eye Movement
Responses


Derek Perkins, Ph.D., West London Mental Health Trust
Todd Hogue, Ph.D., Lincoln University


The assessment of offence-related sexual arousal is a key element in the comprehensive assessment of sex
offenders' risk and treatment needs, as set out in, for example, Thorntons Structured Assessment of Risk &
Need (SARN) and Hart et als Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol (RSVP). Penile plethysmograph (PPG) assessments
have been identified as a key element in formulating the sexual domain of risk and need, especially in relation to
child molesters as initially highlighted by Hanson & Bussire (1998). Results for rapists and other sexual
aggressors against adults (usually women) are less clear. This is likely to be due to the wider range of motives
for, and functions of such sexual assaults against adults. The PPG is currently the method of choice for assessing
offence-related sexual arousal, providing moderate discriminative ability and resilience against faking (Kalmus &
Beech, 2005). A wide range of stimuli (audio or visual) have been developed for use in PPG assessments,
including the Marshall, and the Laws audio stimuli and the Laws et al Not Real People (NRP) visual stimuli for
age-gender preference assessments (Dean & Perkins, 2008).

A sub-set of sexual aggressors against women have an overriding sexual interest in / preference for forced sex or
sadistic behaviour, which can under some circumstances escalate into sexually motivated homicide (Proulx et al,
2007; Perkins, 2008). It is for these individuals that PPG assessment data can be particularly useful in
formulating, assessing and managing risks and guiding treatment and the treatment evaluation process.

The UK prison service and high secure forensic health system have, for the last twenty years, used a set of 12
video sequences depicting mutual, rape and aggression scenarios between men and women (the MAR set).
This material is now dated and has lost its arousal potential for some subjects. Perkins (2010) has developed a
new set of moving images depicting consenting adult sexual behaviour, rape and non-sexual violence (the CRV
set). This was achieved using a using actors and has been constructed so that sequences fall within the criteria
for a UK 18 category movie, which would be available to adults over 18 at the cinema and on television after
9pm. The scenes have sound tracks but no dialogue. The consent scenes include caressing, kissing, mutual
pleasure, some nudity and simulated intercourse. The rape scenes include force, overpowering the victim, some
nudity, simulated rape and victim distress. The violent scenes involve pushing, punching, kicking, strangling,
victim distress, and no nudity or explicit sexual acts.

Hogue et al (parallel ATSA paper submission) have piloted a method for eye tracking non-offender subjects'
direction of gaze with both still and moving images, the latter including sections of the Perkins stimuli. This
paper describes the use of the Hogue eye tracking procedure with a sample of high secure, mentally disordered
sexual offenders convicted for rape and sexually related assaults (sexual motives or sexual features) against
adult females prior to their sexual arousal modification focused treatment. The eye tracking results are reviewed
in the context of parallel PPG results and other psychophysiological measures (electrodermal and heart rate),
and the possible utility of the combined procedure is explored.

References:
Hanson, R.K., & Bussire, M.T. (1998). Predicting relapse: A meta-analysis of sexual offender recidivism studies.
Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 66, 348-362.
Kalmus, E. & Beech, A. R. (2005). Forensic assessment of sexual interest: A review. Aggression and Violent
Behavior, 10, 193-217
Dean, C. & Perkins, D. E. (2008) Penile plethysmography. Prison Service Journal, vol. 178, July, pp 20-25
Perkins, D. E. (2008). Diagnosis, assessment and identification of severe paraphilic disorders In A. Harris & C.
Page (eds.) Sexual homicide and paraphilias. (Correctional Service of Canada)
Proulx, J. & Sauvtre, N. (2007). Sexual murderers and sexual aggressors: psychopathological considerations. In
J. Proulx, E. Beauregard, M. Cusson & A. Nicole (Eds), Sexual Murderers: A Comparative Analysis and New
Perspectives (pp. 51-69) Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.



Using Eye Tracking and Behaviour Segmentation to Better Understand Interest to Sexual Violence


Todd Hogue, Ph.D., Lincoln University
Derek Perkins, Ph.D., West London Mental Health Trust


It is critical in understanding the dynamics of sexual offending, to better understand the process of
inappropriate sexual interest, both in terms of the target individual and the aspects of a scene which may be
seen as attractive. There is a relatively clear evidence base for sexual offenders interested in children, where
sexual arousal to images and depictions of children are one of the best predictors of future sexual offending. For
sexual offenders against adults the link between depictions of sexual aggression and future offending risk is
much less clear. This is likely to be due, at least in part, to depictions of sexual aggression against adults needing
to convey a range of additional information related to the context of the sexual act beyond that of simple age
appropriateness. To make a judgement about the inappropriateness of adult sexual behaviour, information
about the quality of the relationship, level of resistance, consent, depictions of pain and a number of other
related interpersonal factors, all need to be present. Such information is rarely available in the presentation of
still images or brief descriptions of behaviours. Recently there has been a move to develop new cognitive
measures of sexual interest and the measurement of implicit associations of sexual interest (see Thornton &
Laws, 2009). While these approaches are extremely interesting, they typically rely on the depictions of single
words or still images to measure cognitive associations and inferred sexual.

There has been much less development done using streams of behaviour which can convey a much wider range
offending behaviour. We have recently used eye tracking to understand the focus of normal sexual interest
using fixed images (Hall, Hogue & Kun, 2010). The extension of the eye tracking methodology to analyses
streams of behaviour, will in particular aid our understanding around depictions of rape and interpersonal
violence. This paper describes the combining eye-tracking and segmentation of behaviour to better understand
differences in the way that a moving segment of sexual violence is perceived and encoded. In this case
individuals view depictions of consenting sex, sexual violence and violence without a sexual content developed
for use in arousal assessment (Perkins, 2010). The paper focuses on the development of this new methodology
with preliminary data comparing the extent to which individuals holding more rape supportive attitudes may
literally see with world differently. The aim is to develop new technologies to better understanding the cognitive
process underpinning sexual violence with the long term aim being to better understand and predict individual
levels of risk.


References
Hall, C., Hogue., T. & Gou, K. (2010). Differential gaze behaviour towards sexually preferred and non-preferred body
images. Journal of Sex Research, 20, pp. 1-9.

Perkins, D. E. (2010). Consent, rape and violence scenes (CRV), Unpublished stimuli set.

Thornton, D. & Laws, D. R. (eds.) (2009). Cognitive Approaches to the Assessment of Sexual Interest in Sexual Offenders.
John Wiley & Son, Ltd., Chichester, UK