Validity of physiological measures of pedophilic sexual arousal in a sexual offender population: a critique of Hall, Proctor, and Nelson

Abstract

It is argued that methodological problems in Hall, Proctor, and Nelson's (1988) comparison of phallometric data on child molesters and rapists include confounding of stimulus category and duration, omission of neutral stimuli and a normal control group, failure to employ relative measures of sexual preference, and failure to exclude subjects who did not respond to the sexual stimuli. Quinsey and Laws maintain that, although these methodological problems preclude accepting the conclusions drawn in Hall et al.'s article, the problems illustrate the need to develop common methodological standards for phallometric research on sexual offenders.