The standardization of a new Explicit Pornographic Picture Set (EPPS)

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Sexuality Studies
• Affective Science

Background:

• Standardized affective picture sets are crucial for emotion and sexuality research.
• Existing sets often lack explicit, diverse pornographic imagery and comprehensive affective data.
• There is a need for validated stimuli representing a wide range of sexual practices and affective responses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a standardized set of diverse, explicit pornographic pictures with detailed affective and emotional ratings.
• To provide researchers with a tool for selecting stimuli based on specific content, affective dimensions (valence, arousal, dominance), and discrete emotions.
• To investigate how gender and sexual attraction influence the perception of pornographic stimuli.

Main Methods:

• Compilation of 192 explicit pornographic images (various practices, same-sex/opposite-sex) and 24 control images.
• Affective and discrete emotion ratings (valence, arousal, dominance, disgust, moral acceptance) by 319 participants with diverse sexual attractions.
• Analysis of stimuli characteristics and participant perception based on gender and sexual attraction.

Main Results:

• The developed stimuli set covers a broad affective space, including positive and negative perceptions.
• Participant perception of pornographic pictures varied significantly based on gender, sexual attraction, and depicted content.
• The set provides comprehensive affective ratings and technical parameters for precise stimulus selection.

Conclusions:

• The Explicit Pornographic Picture Set (EPPS) is a valid and versatile tool for studying emotion and sexuality.
• It offers diverse, explicit imagery with rich affective data, particularly useful for research involving women and men with varying sexual attractions.
• The EPPS is available to the scientific community for non-commercial research purposes.