The impact of immersion on the perception of pornography: A virtual reality study

The present study investigated the effects of varying degrees of immersion on the perception of pornographic video material. Concretely, we compared conventional desktop with Virtual Reality (VR) technology, with the latter embedding the observer in a virtual environment. Differences in the participant’s reaction and evaluation between both display modes were explored. Sixty male participants were alternately shown sexually explicit video material on a two-dimensional desktop monitor and a three-dimensional, high-immersive VR head-mounted display (HMD). During the two video sequences, physical arousal was continuously measured as skin conductance response, whereas subjective sexual arousal was measured using a slider. Questionnaire measures of subjective sexual arousal, presence, and sexual presence were also employed. Results showed that viewing pornographic video material via VR technology had a stronger effect on psychophysiological reactions as well as subjective experience than using the conventional desktop display. It thus appears that experiencing pornographic video stimuli in high-immersive virtual environments increases the experience of presence as well as sexual-related perception.