Submission Date

5-11-2026

Document Type

Paper- Restricted to Campus Access

Department

Psychology

Adviser

Joel Bish

Committee Member

Joel Bish

Committee Member

Mora Reinka

Committee Member

Lauren Makuch

Department Chair

Jennifer Frymiare

Project Description

The purpose of this study is to understand how stress influences the way individuals attend to, and process erotic stimuli compared to neutral stimuli. While previous research shows that stress alters prefrontal cortex functioning and shifts attention toward salient information, it remains unclear how these changes impact the processing of sexually relevant stimuli. To examine this, participants were assigned to either a high stress or control condition and completed a visual attention task while frontal lobe activity was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Eye tracking was used to capture differences in attention, specifically looking at fixation duration within predefined regions of interest across erotic and neutral images. In addition, individual differences in sexual attitudes were measured to explore how these perspectives may influence attentional patterns under stress. Results suggest that the effects of stress are not uniform, but instead depend on individual differences, with more sexually positive individuals showing increased attention to erotic stimuli under stress. Overall, these findings highlight how stress can shape attentional processing in complex ways, influenced by both neutral mechanism and personal attitudes.

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