ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades, eye-tracking technology has improved significantly to where it provides an easy-to-use and reliable method for measuring visual attention. It is also now used to measure typical and atypical sexual interest. Eye-trackers are used to estimate an individual’s gaze direction, and it has been acknowledged that gaze patterns can be used to indicate sexual interest, with marked gender differences to visual sexual stimuli demonstrated in the existing literature. Eye-tracking is highly effective for measuring automatic attention to visual stimuli, which is unable to be consciously manipulated, thus providing a potentially reliable and difficult to manipulate method of sex interest assessment. This methodology is also useful due to its non-invasive nature and ability to produced directly comparable data for both sexes. Many studies have successfully used eye-tracking in order to investigate sex differences in non-offending individuals, as well as offending individuals. However, eye-tracking is still relatively new, and it has been suggested that this methodology is still not fully optimized. This chapter will summarize the use of eye-tracking in the assessment of both typical and deviant sexual interest; identify the benefits and limitations of the measure, as well as speculate on future applications of this exciting technology.
