A Bayesian Decision-Support Tool for Child Sexual Abuse Assessment and Investigation.

In assessments of child sexual abuse (CSA) allegations, informative background information is often overlooked or not used properly. We therefore created and tested an instrument that uses accessible background information to calculate the probability of a child being a CSA victim that can be used as a starting point in the following investigation. Studying 903 demographic and socioeconomic variables from over 11,000 Finnish children, we identified 42 features related to CSA. Using Bayesian logic to calculate the probability of abuse, our instrument-the Finnish Investigative Instrument of Child Sexual Abuse (FICSA)-has two separate profiles for boys and girls. A cross-validation procedure suggested excellent diagnostic utility (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.97 for boys and AUC = 0.88 for girls). We conclude that the presented method can be useful in forensic assessments of CSA allegations by adding a reliable statistical approach to considering background information, and to support clinical decision making and guide investigative efforts.

Opposition to Inbreeding Between Close Kin Reflects Inclusive Fitness Costs.

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene's-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation.

Gender Differences in the Prevalence of Vocal Symptoms in Smokers.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the present study was to explore possible gender differences in the occurrence of vocal symptoms in smokers. METHODS: A total of 1728 respondents, 68% women and 32% men completed a "Speech, language and voice" questionnaire. The questions concerning six vocal symptoms along with questions concerning smoking habits were used as the main data source for the present study. RESULTS: About 24% of the men and 22% of the women were smokers. Male smokers did not differ from male nonsmokers in reporting vocal symptoms. In contrast, female smokers were more likely than female nonsmokers to report having vocal symptoms. Smoking seemed to have a significant effect on four of the six vocal symptoms in the female smokers. CONCLUSIONS: There appears to be a difference in the effects of smoking between men and women. The female vocal folds may be more vulnerable to cigarette smoke, probably due to anatomical and physiological differences. Nevertheless, it is yet to be demonstrated that the vocal symptoms in female smokers are causally related to smoking. It could be meaningful to use gender specific strategies when informing smokers about the risks for voice problems.

The virtual people set: developing computer-generated stimuli for the assessment of pedophilic sexual interest.

The implicit assessment of pedophilic sexual interest through viewing-time methods necessitates visual stimuli. There are grave ethical and legal concerns against using pictures of real children, however. The present report is a summary of findings on a new set of 108 computer-generated stimuli. The images vary in terms of gender (female/male), explicitness (naked/clothed), and physical maturity (prepubescent, pubescent, and adult) of the persons depicted. A series of three studies tested the internal and external validity of the picture set. Studies 1 and 2 yielded good-to-high estimates of observer agreement with regard to stimulus maturity levels by two methods (categorization and paired comparison). Study 3 extended these findings with regard to judgments made by convicted child sexual offenders.

Fitness costs predict inbreeding aversion irrespective of self-involvement: support for hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory.

It is expected that in humans, the lowered fitness of inbred offspring has produced a sexual aversion between close relatives. Generally, the strength of this aversion depends on the degree of relatedness between two individuals, with closer relatives inciting greater aversion than more distant relatives. Individuals are also expected to oppose acts of inbreeding that do not include the self, as inbreeding between two individuals posits fitness costs not only to the individuals involved in the sexual act, but also to their biological relatives. Thus, the strength of inbreeding aversion should be predicted by the fitness costs an inbred child posits to a given individual, irrespective of this individual's actual involvement in the sexual act. To test this prediction, we obtained information about the family structures of 663 participants, who reported the number of same-sex siblings, opposite-sex siblings, opposite-sex half siblings and opposite-sex cousins. Each participant was presented with three different types of inbreeding scenarios: 1) Participant descriptions, in which participants themselves were described as having sex with an actual opposite-sex relative (sibling, half sibling, or cousin); 2) Related third-party descriptions, in which participants' actual same-sex siblings were described as having sex with their actual opposite-sex relatives; 3) Unrelated third-party descriptions, in which individuals of the same sex as the participants but unrelated to them were described as having sex with opposite-sex relatives. Participants rated each description on the strength of sexual aversion (i.e., disgust-reaction). We found that unrelated third-party descriptions elicited less disgust than related third-party and participant descriptions. Related third-party and participant descriptions elicited similar levels of disgust suggesting that the strength of inbreeding aversion is predicted by inclusive fitness costs. Further, in the related and unrelated conditions alike, the strength of inbreeding aversion was positively associated with the degree of relatedness between those described in the descriptions.

Using Ecological Momentary Assessment to investigate associations between ejaculatory latency and control in partnered and non-partnered sexual activities.

Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) was used to investigate associations between, and variations in, ejaculatory control and ejaculation latency time (ELT) over repeated measurements of sexual activities. Differences between measures recorded in partnered or non-partnered settings were also investigated. The sample consisted of 21 male Finns aged 18 years or above, contributing a total of 158 reports of partnered and non-partnered sexual activities over a six-week period. In the context of non-partnered sexual activities, after controlling for within-subjects dependence, ELTs between events were predictive of one another, but ELT did not predict ejaculatory control when measured simultaneously, nor at subsequent events. Also, ejaculatory control could not predict simultaneously measured ELT or ejaculatory control at subsequent events. During partnered sexual activities, both ejaculatory control and ELT could be accurately predicted by observing ejaculatory control at prior events. In this context, ejaculatory control could also reliably predict simultaneously measured ELT. ELT or ejaculatory control during partnered sexual activity could not be predicted by observing ELT at prior events. Between-event correlations were generally low, indicating considerable variation in ejaculatory functioning over time. EMA is a thrifty assessment method for studying variations in ejaculatory function, and is likely suitable for studying sexual dysfunctions in general.

Assessment of pedophilic sexual interest with an attentional choice reaction time task.

Choice-reaction time (CRT) is an experimental information-processing paradigm. Based on an interference effect in visual attention, the CRT method has been shown to be suitable for measuring sexual orientation in men and women. The present study assessed the potential of the CRT to identify deviant (i.e., pedophilic) sexual interest. Participants were patients from forensic-psychiatric hospitals: 21 child molesters and 21 non-sex offenders. The dependent variable was reaction time in an ostensible seek-and-locate task (i.e., identifying the position of a dot superimposed on a picture of a person). There was an interaction effect between stimulus age category and participant group status: Child molesters took longer to respond to pictures of children relative to pictures of adults. Non-sex offenders showed an opposite pattern (i.e., longer reaction times with pictures of adults than with pictures of children). In addition, the data supported the notion of sexual content induced delay: Subjects took longer for the task with nude stimuli than with clothed ones. A subtractive preference index, derived from the reaction times for child and adult stimulus material, allowed distinguishing participants from both groups almost perfectly (ROC-AUC = .998). We conclude that a match of sexual interest with properties of visual stimuli led to a cognitive interference effect: Attentional resources were drawn from the ostensible task of locating the dot towards exploring the picture. This opens up the possibility of using this interference effect (i.e., the delay of response times) for diagnostic purposes.

Age and gender specific sexual behaviors in children.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present research was to explore the sexual behaviors of 2- to 7-year-old children through reports of day-care personnel. An overall aim of this exploratory study was to provide information about the frequencies of child sexual behaviors. Also, the aim was to explore any age and gender differences. METHOD: A representative sample of 364 Finnish children not screened for developmental delay, sexual abuse history or psychiatric problems (181 girls and 183 boys) in 190 day-care centers were studied using the "Day-Care Sexuality Questionnaire" (DCSQ), with 244 sexual and other behavior items. RESULTS: Age influenced more the extent of the 244 sexual behaviors of boys than of girls. In sexual behaviors increasing with age, girls showed behaviors with a more social character, whereas boys showed more explorative and information-seeking behaviors. Girls had a higher frequency of domestic and gender role exploring behaviors, whereas the boys tended to engage in explorative acting and information-seeking behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that child sexual behavior reported by day-care personnel may provide useful information about the development of children's sexuality. Implications for sexual abuse investigations were discussed.