Research indicates that sex offenders’ eye movements are different from ordinary people. (Image : Pixabay)
SEOUL, April 8 (Korea Bizwire) – Research indicates that sex offenders‘ eye movements are different from ordinary people.
According to a report issued by Professor Min Yoon-gi from Chungnam University’s psychology department, ordinary people, sex criminals and child molesters display different patterns of eye movement.
The team studied the eye movement of 18 male students from the university (average age of 23.9 years), and 45 male sex criminals with normal intelligence and eyesight (average age of 37.94 years) by attaching tracking devices to their eyes.
Two pictures from a four-picture set of an adult male, adult female, boy and girl were shown to the subjects. The subjects were asked to evaluate the parts they liked the most while the research team analyzed their visual responses.
The results showed that there were no noticeable differences in responses between the two groups.
However, when the content of the responses was analyzed, the length of time sex criminals stared at the picture of the girl was double the time ordinary men spent looking at it.
Child molesters also looked at the pictures of the adult female for a longer period of time than the adult male.
In addition, the study looked at the ‘ability to suppress sexual responses’ by stimulating the subjects with an arrow shape. The results showed that the ordinary group responded quicker to the stimulus than sex criminals, but the latter had a weaker ability to suppress sexual responses.
The research was conducted following a request from the Ministry of Justice. Visual responses have been studied in the past to diagnose sexual perversion, but this was the first time research was conducted by tracking eye movement.
The research team anticipates that the study will contribute to diagnosing and evaluating perverted sexual preferences of sex offenders, and treating them in the future.
By M.H.Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
