The description of the porn study that was conducted was interesting, since the video only reported upon the effects in the visual cortex, and not in any other parts of the brain. The paper (subs req'd) found (in the abstract):
The strong de-activation during watching high-intensity erotic film might represent compensation for the increased blood supply in the brain regions involved in sexual arousal, also because high-intensity erotic movies do not require precise scanning of the visual field, because the impact is clear to the observer.Now, it's possible that this is a partial presentation of results. After all, why not use the results of other brain areas to write more papers? The research team can just say that they were analyzing the different data from the various brain regions separately. So, it will be interesting (although I'm unlikely to personally follow up) to see if, indeed, there was "compensation for the increased blood supply in the brain regions involved in sexual arousal" or if it was something else. Also, it would be interesting to see if there was a difference in the response with men. (Who, knows, but perhaps there already is such a study.)
Anyway, it's important to note that the liking or disliking of something is not the same as the amount of visual cortex use that the activity uses. Also, not paying attention to something is also not the same thing as using less of the visual cortex. It is possible, for example, to absolutely hate nature documentaries (which used significantly more of the visual cortex). It's also possible to not pay much attention to the nature documentary (while still using significantly more of the visual cortex than watching the porn).
I wonder, though, what if there was porn that was filmed in a highly visually rich environment that didn't focus exclusively on the subjects, but also on the setting. How would the brain scan results of the visual cortex differ from the straight-up nature documentary?
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