Response Inhibition in People Convicted of Sexual Offences, 2020-2023

The work forms part of a project that employed a solution-focused approach to examine the psychological processes that could be targeted to ensure potential high-risk groups, such as men who view online child sexual exploitation material but have not engaged in contact sexual offences, do not harm children. The collection contains data from participants convicted of sexual offences against children and non-offending controls. This was a response inhibition task. The task included no-go trials and stop signal trials. Participants had to either withhold (no-go) or cancel (stop signal) a behavioural response to visually presented stimuli. Stimuli included digitally manipulated images of adults and children in swimwear. Accuracy and response time data were analysed. Results showed that people with convictions for sexual offences against children showed more problematic response inhibition in comparison to non-offending controls.