Abstract

A deviant interest greatly increases the risk of committing and recommitting a sexual offence (Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2005; Marshall & Barbaree, 1990). Thus, it is imperative that sexual deviancy is measured reliably. However, self-report is subject to socially desirable responding and phallometry is prone to faking and can be invasive (Kalmus & Beech, 2005). As a result, many researchers have set out to develop more reliable and less invasive methods, commonly termed indirect measures (Snowden et al., 2011). However, most of these measures are still in their infancy, difficult to implement in practice, and only provide a single outcome variable (e.g., response-latency). Drawing upon previous research (Hofmann et al., 2009; Kraus & Hofmann, 2014), a new tablet PC application (M-TASI; Multimodal Tablet for Assessing Sexual Interest) has been developed, which will be presented in this poster.
On the M-TASI, individuals are shown a series of pictures (e.g., children and adults), which they either swipe downwards (towards them) or upwards (away from them) to indicate liking or disliking the picture, respectively. The M-TASI records the speed at which the images are swiped, along with reaction times and ‘touch’ data (i.e., where one touches the image). This single tool, therefore, provides converging information to determine an individual’s sexual preference. The theoretical underpinning is based on the well-supported notion that pulling movements are associated with ‘approaching’ a desired object, while pushing movements are associated with ‘avoiding’ undesired objects (Markman & Brendl, 2005). The M-TASI will be a beneficial new tool for clinicians as it adopts an indirect approach; is easy to implement; and provides multiple outcomes variables. Laws (2009) stated that the future of sexual preference assessment belongs to new technologies and we propose that the M-TASI epitomises this sentiment.