First published brain study on porn users released today.

@ toiuf

Spin of my words. I said

So yea... take it up with them. I did not refute myself in any way.

We have 60+ scientific studies showing solid evidence that the internet may cause brain changes similar to substance addictions. With thousands of guys who have given up porn and recovered from a wide variety of things, including erectile dysfunction. It is not the same thing.

 

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Below I will cut and paste from my analysis. Everything above is a lie. Documented here - http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/nothing-correlates-nothing-span-labs-new-porn-study-2013

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MY ANALYSIS
Why no correlations between questionnaires and EEG readings?

Prause's second argument is that the lack of correlations between subjects EEG readings and 3 other questionnaires means porn addiction doesn't exist. Two major reasons account for the lack of correlation:

1) The researchers chose vastly different subjects (women, men, heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals), but showed them all standard, possibly uninteresting, male+female porn.

COMMENTS - I said 7 non heterosexuals as did Prause's paper. Anything else (bisexual vs. homosexual) has come out long after her paper was published. Anyhow, Prause still hasn't addressed the fact that she used males, females, non-heterosexuals, some with serious porn problems, others without, in a study that musts have homogenous subjects to assess EEG readings. This is like scanning the brains of cocaine addicts and people who have never used cocaine, to see if cocaine alters the brain.

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MY ANALYSIS

The Sexual Desire Inventory has questions about desire for masturbation and desire for sex with a partner. "Sexual desire" is a measure of both groups of questions. Here's the key point: no statistically significant correlation was found between scores on the entire Sexual Desire Inventory and EEG readings. Thus there is no support for the study's conclusion that:

"Brain response was only predicted by a measure of sexual desire. In other words, hypersexuality does not appear to explain brain differences in sexual response any more than just having high libido." (From interview with Nicole Prause, corresponding author for the study)

Put simply, when the researchers used the:

1) SDI questions relating to partnered sex only, they found a slight negative correlation.

2) When they used the entire SDI, including questions about masturbation, they found no significant correlation.

Had the authors been honest the name of the study would have been: "Sexual Desire is NOT Related to Neurophysiological Responses Elicited by Sexual Images"

COMMENTS - This continues for many paragraphs. Nowhere do I say Prause didn't calculate this or that. This is a lie.

In fact we discuss the table with all the calculations and reveal that Prause messed up her calculations. From my analysis:

Second mistake: Table 2 says the Solitary test score range is "3-26," and yet the female mean exceeds it. It's 26.46--literally off the charts. What happened? The four solitary sex questions (10-13) add up to a possible score of "31".

The most shocking mistake - as I posted above - is that Prause thought there were 7 masturbation questions when there were only four. From my analysis:

Finally, it's important to note that the study contains two errors in regard to the SDI. Quoting the study:

---- "The SDI measures levels of sexual desire using two scales composed of seven items each."-----

In fact, the Sexual Desire Inventory contains nine partnered questions, four solitary questions, and one question that cannot be categorized (#14).

She doesn't even know what the SDI entails. Unbelievable.

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I didn't say that in my analysis, but I am saying here.

See this previous post were Johnson calls her out for misrepresentation, something she hasn't denied it this thread - she can't - http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=21334.msg362873#msg362873
Is there anything worse than saying a researcher misrepresent her findings? Prause did. Irrefutable.

For the 9th time higher P300 readings when exposed to cues (compared to neutral pictures) is accepted as indication of arousal - and thus cue reactivity. Her subjects had higher P300 readings for sexual images, which is what one would expect for cue reactivity, which is an indication for addiction.

Let's see what John Johnson PhD posted under her interview - http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-sexual-continuum/201307/new-brain-study-questions-existence-sexual-addiction/comments#comment-542939

Mustanski asks, "What was the purpose of the study?" And Prause replies, "Our study tested whether people who report such problems [problems with regulating their viewing of online erotica] look like other addicts from their brain responses to sexual images."

But the study did not compare brain recordings from persons having problems regulating their viewing of online erotica to brain recordings from drug addicts and brain recordings from a non-addict control group, which would have been the obvious way to see if brain responses from the troubled group look more like the brain responses of addicts or non-addicts.

Instead, Prause claims that their within-subject design was a better method, where research subjects serve as their own control group. With this design, they found that the EEG response of their subjects (as a group) to erotic pictures was stronger than their EEG responses to other kinds of pictures. This is shown in the inline waveform graph (although for some reason the graph differs considerably from the actual graph in the published article).

So this group who reports having trouble regulating their viewing of online erotica has a stronger EEG response to erotic pictures than other kinds of pictures. Do addicts show a similarly strong EEG response when presented with their drug of choice? We don't know. Do normal, non-addicts show a response as strong as the troubled group to erotica? Again, we do not know. We don't know whether this EEG pattern is more similar to the brain patterns of addicts or non-addicts.

The Prause research team claims to be able to demonstrate whether the elevated EEG response of their subjects to erotica is an addictive brain response or just a high-libido brain response by correlating a set of questionnaire scores with individual differences in EEG response. But explaining differences in EEG response is a different question from exploring whether the overall group's response looks addictive or not. The Prause group reported that the only statistically significant correlation with the EEG response was a negative correlation (r=-.33) with desire for sex with a partner. In other words, there was a slight tendency for subjects with strong EEG responses to erotica to have lower desire for sex with a partner. How does that say anything about whether the brain responses of people who have trouble regulating their viewing of erotica are similar to addicts or non-addicts with a high libido?

The above pretty much pokes holes in all Prause's claims.

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MY ANALYSIS

According to everything we can find, the SDI is a 14-question test. Nine of its items address partnered ("dyadic") sexual desire and four or five address solo ("solitary") sexual desire (not seven and seven, as researchers state).

According to one of its developers, Ilana Spector, the SDI is intended to be administered as a single unit:

-----"The scale was only validated using ALL the items both solitary and dyadic.... The scale was not designed to be used [as it was here] nor was it validated that way."------

The SDI is an "all or none" measuring tool for "sexual desire," not "half."


COMMENTS; Take it up with Ilana Spector - she developed the SDI and said it was only validated as a measure of sexual desire when all the questions are used. You can read the Spector study for your self.

Bottom line: When Prause calculated all 14 questions (4 masturbation) she didn't have a correlation. This mean she had no study, she had no headlines...she was screwed. So Prause used the partnered SDI questions to concoct the title of her study and all the sound bites in her interviews. See John Johnson's description of Prause really found above.

But that's not all. Prause said in her study - "The dyadic subscale is commonly used as an index of trait sexual desire level."

Trait sexual desire? This appears to be a lie. Where is the evidence to support this claim? Both studies SPAN Lab lists in support of this untruth used the entire 14-question SDI. (Appetitive Responses to Sexual Stimuli Are Attenuated in Individuals with Low Levels of Sexual Desire and Attention and emotional responses to sexual stimuli and their relationship to sexual desire. The latter was conducted by Prause herself.)

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Yes.

1) Now tell us why you won't refute John A Johnson? He said you misrepresented your findings...which you did.

2) Tell us why you keep ignoring the fact that your study found higher EEG readings fro porn - just like one would expect with addiction. You lied and said it was not like addiction. See this earlier post where Hilton & Johnson expose Prause for her lies - http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=21334.msg362843#msg362843

3) Tell us why you misrepresented your study in the press as finding correlation with sexual desire and EEG's, when you had no correlation with all 14 SDI questions, You know, the 14 questions that included all the masturbation questions. Wouldn't it be important to include masturbation questions when studying compulsive porn users?? Oh yeah, when all 14 questions were calculated - you had no headlines.

4) Tell us why you keep visiting YBR every time you feel threatened - whether it's a new study, or Hilton dismantling your study, or others dismantling David Ley's and yours silly porn addiction review? Is this how you feel more powerful?

I can't wait for your trolling when Voon's study(s) arrive. Once again, Prause is lying about Valerie Voon's findings on her SPAN lab her website. Prause said Voon's stud's agree with her spin on the study we have been debating. That Voon found no evidence of addiction.

I actually saw a talk about given by Voon at a conference, and not only did she find the markers of addiction, Voon NO EVIDENCE OF HIGHER SEXUAL DESIRE.

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EDIT:

The reason I capitalized - no evidence of higher sexual desire - is that Prause said her big finding was that those with higher EEG readings scored higher on the sexual desire inventory. The prause/ley clim is that people who think they have porn addiction only have higher sexual desires - not addiction. Pretty silly, but that's their core argument.

As I said, when Prause calculated all 14 questions on the SDI, she had no correlation. So much for her evidence.

Here's the important thing - NEITHER THE KUHN STUDY, NOR THE VOON STUDY FOUND ANY EVIDENCE OF HIGHER SEXUAL DESIRE.

 

@ toiuf

Sex? We are talking porn addiction... not sex. If the internet can cause addiction. That is evidence using the internet clicking from porno to porno can cause addiction.

By the way, a few of those studies on internet addicts included porn use... you know that already because you have read them all.

So... again. Cite studies that show porn does not re-wire or numb the brain. Or go back to my first post on this thread and answer my questions.

 

...You think using the internet can result in symptoms of addiction but not sexual stimuli? Are you schizophrenic?

 

Just as predicted not one single bit of substance.. ad hominen and the usual lies.

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He's a senior psychologist reviewed methodologies, including EEGs - and he tore apart your study, exposed your lies. That's why you can't reply with substance. Here's a link to Johnson. http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/48459
He knew enough to rip apart your study.

Hilton's was peer-reviewed and published in the same journal as your study - Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology Here it is - http://www.socioaffectiveneuroscipsychol.net/index.php/snp/article/view/23833/32589
You have yet to respond to it either Hilton or Johnson ..because you know they correctly described your misrepresentations.

So we have 2 more lies, and inability to take on substance. This whole thread has been lies and more lies.

I just refuted your four lies, and showed how you misrepresented your study. Hilton and Johnson have done the same. You continue to duck and weave and not address any of my points about how your study in now way compares to Kuhns, and how your EEG study was a bag of misrepresentations and lies.

 

@ toiuf

It really... honestly.. saddens me someone could say something like that about a guy who has helped thousands of guys recover from sexual dysfunctions, heal their relationships, turn away from suicidal thoughts because of hope, all without making a penny off of us.

Do you not realize how sad that is to say, and how low you just stooped to say something like that to a guy who literally spends thousands of hours helping people live healthier, happier lives. Gary and Marnia together have helped so many couples regain their passion for each other in and out of the bedroom.

Extremely messed up toiuf... your comment was sad. You cannot address our points any longer so you resort to that. Well, you never did address mine.

Everyone on YBR I hope you stay strong... there is always hope to recover as our brains can change our entire lives.

 

Lie. Again, and you still cannot take on any substance. I don't know...I think I might be more concerned if I was a UCLA researcher who spent her off hours trolling porn recovery forums, debating the existence of porn addiction, while using several aliases...and still losing neuroscientific debates with non scientists.

It must be a really rewarding life you have.

What's rewarding for me is that I know how you really are, - now others will be able to see it for themselves. I'm passing this thread around.

 

@ toiuf

I have a dick that works now... I didn't when I was 23... care to expound on the "problem" you are talking about.

 

Right. If you are not then that is even more sad, because you are very close companion...or co-author on the study. And that means there are more like you trolling porn recovery forums out of hate and spite. Nice life.

 

It's actually her who has harassed me. It's all been documented. UCLA Knows what's going on.

 

Perhaps they are afraid of a lawsuit. Prause threatened with me with 2 groundless lawsuits in 2 days. This occurred in April, 2013, right after I wrote a blog post about David Ley's blog post covering Prause's unpublished study.

The groundless threats are documented here. http://pornstudyskeptics.blogspot.com/2013/07/reidprause-reply-our-response.html

The entire email exchange with Prause is available upon request. See below for a chronology of the events surrounding the Prause/Steel study.

Her first email revealed that she had been monitoring all my posts on YBR. This occurred in April 2013, whereas her study, and my analysis of it, were not published until late July, 2013. More proof as to who the real cyber-stalker is here.

 

Wow. For someone who's trying to get their argument across scientifically, you're not half acting like a child.

If I was unsure about all this and wanted some "real answers", my first reaction would be to disregard everything you're saying simply because you're being a very unpleasant person. Whose approach is ostensibly throwing around insults and repeating the same things ad nauseum regardless of refutation (prompting others to do the same).

If you want to have anyone take you seriously, fix your approach. You evidently have some self-reflection to engage in.

Especially if you're posting from multiple accounts (which becomes more evident the more each one posts). They all have the same writing style; derisive and highly emotive.

 

Promoted? Update: January 2015, UCLA did not renew Prause's contract.

A chapter? She will not name me because I will sue her for libel. Oh yes, the "police" are after me. A familiar claim by the sock-puppets. This is exactly what the many anonymous posts stated in July 2013 - that the police are after me for posting a "picture of a female researcher on a porn site". See the links and explanation below.

Who else would know that, except for the person who created the posts, and filed a crazy police report? Police have never contacted me. Crazy people can file crazy police reports.... "officer the martians abducted by pet dog".

 

A school afraid of a lawsuit does not promote someone. They know what you did.

 

I'm not deleting anything, but knowing your MO to blame everything on that scientist, I probably should! You are such a horrible person to someone who has nothing to do with you.

 

Ok, then.

This thread was very disturbing.

 

I get that feeling every time I look at this forum!

 

It's extremely telling that you have deleted dozens of comments by TrickyPaladin and your other sock-puppets. You deleted all the comments debating the merits or demerits of the 2013 Prause EEG study (Steele et al 2013). You did so because the comments incriminate you as Nicole Prause: only Prause (and myself) would know the minutia of Steele et al 2013. Only Prause would post dozens of comments defending her study on YBR, where Prause has been monitoring my comments since at least March 2013 (email from Prause below confirms this).

It's even more telling that your bizarre accusations of harassment are backed up with no examples, and no evidence. I only wrote a analysis about your flawed study, and the unsupported claims you made about it. I suppose you consider that to be harassment? Let me provide both examples and evidence of harassment I received from Prause and an anonymous cyber-stalkers who know intimate details about Prause:

The progression of events with Nicole Prause:

SEE THIS PAGE FOR A MORE EXTENSIVE ACCOUNTING OF PRAUSE'S HARASSMENT OF GARY WILSON AND OTHERS - http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/nicole-prauses-pdf-her-span-lab-website

MARCH 5, 2013
David Ley publishes a blog post about Nicole Prause's unpublished non-peer reviewed study called - "Your Brain on Porn - It's NOT Addictive". It's important to note that only Ley had access to Prause's unpublished study (It was published 5 months later). Put simply Ley and Prause teamed up to write Ley's blog post. The blog post linked to YBOP and suggested that I was in favor of banning porn. Months before Prause's EEG study was published Prause and Ley targeted me in their blog post.

MARCH 7, 2013
I published a Psychology Today blog post responding to the David Ley post. Eventually both Ley's blog post and my response eventually removed by Psychology Today editors. You can find both Leys and my post archived on YBOP here: Unpublished Porn Study by SPAN Lab Finds Porn Is Arousing (2013) http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/unpublished-porn-study-spanlab-finds-porn-arousing-2013

Note that my blog post clearly states that I was only responding to Ley's description of the Prause study. Again, only Ley had access to Prause's unpublished study, and they teamed up to create Ley's post.

MARCH 7, 2013
I post under David Ley's article requesting the study...

...but there was no response:

APRIL 10, 2013
In response to the above comment, Prause contacts Psychology Today editors and emails me the following. In the email, Prause attacks me personally, and mistakenly states that I did not ask for the study. I asked David Ley for it. The email:

In addition PT editors forward a second email from Prause:

Ahh the legal threats and false claims begin. Everything Prause said is a load of crap as:
1) We didn't describe her study or misrepresent it in any way - we only responded to Ley's description (read for yourself - http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/unpublished-porn-study-spanlab-finds-porn-arousing-2013). To this day she has yet to refute one word in our April PT post, or the analysis we wrote in July after her study was published.
2) We make no money off of this endeavor
3) I asked for a copy of the study

My email response to Prause:

APRIL 12, 2013
Two days later Prause contacts me again threatening even more legal action.
She somehow tracked down one of my comments on YBR (http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=7522.0). It was posted on a long thread about Ley's article. The purpose of my comment was to explain why the Psychology Today post was removed. This begins her pattern of cyberstalking as a not even the Google search I performed could find that post. How did she know about this thread on a porn recovery forum?

Prause email:

I respond:

Prause emails again, with more crazy legal threats

I sent my final email to Prause, which points out that she is the one initiating contact, and the only person threatening legal action

The end of the beginning with Nicole Prause


LATE JULY WHEN THE STUDY WAS FINALLY PUBLISHED

In late July the Prause EEG study (Steele et al., 2013) was finally published. It arrived with much press coverage, including this Prause Interview by a Psychology Today blogger: New Brain Study Questions Existence of “Sexual Addiction" http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-sexual-continuum/201307/new-brain-study-questions-existence-sexual-addiction

A few days later we published our analysis of the Prause study and her claims put forth in the above interview and elsewhere in the media. We posted it on Psychology Today.
• UCLA's SPAN Lab Touts Empty Porn Study As Ground-Breaking http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/nothing-correlates-nothing-span-labs-new-porn-study-2013

A few days after I wrote the above analysis, an "unnamed person" posted multiple comments wherever my name appeared. The comments were all very similar and lie about the content of the analysis and lie about me (that I never taught anatomy and physiology, that I never went to college, that I lied about my credentials, etc.). Keep in mind that all these comments were by someone with extraordinarily deep knowledge of the Prause study. The content and phrasing were nearly identical in all the comments.

JULY - A FEW DAYS LATER
Two YouTube channels were created:
1) GaryWilson Stalker - http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDkVsLktLG8TdXbeFqJkw9g
2) GaryWilson IsAFraud - http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwim0VtoGhQNxZ5famUUvTw

Both channels began posting comments under my many YouTube videos, under my TEDX talk, and on a few Youtube interviews with me. The theme of these comments was that I posted a woman's picture on a "porn site", that I was going to jail, and that I had not gone to college. All are false.

Here's the reality: Gary Wilson wrote a Psychology Today blog post about this Nicole Prause Psychology Today Interview (both links above). Psychology Today required at least one picture (all of our PT blog posts contained several pictures). Since this blog post was about Nicole Prause's interview and her study, it seemed quite appropriate to use her picture. The picture that accompanied the Psychology Today blog post was also used with this same article on PornStudySkeptics & YBOP.

The photo of Prause came from what I thought was a UCLA website, SPAN lab. Everything about SPAN Lab's website gave the impression it was owned by UCLA. For example, UCLA is the location of SPAN Lab on the internet wayback machine in 2013. UCLA is a California state school, answering to the taxpayers. Many months later when wrote UCLA concerning Prause's libelous PDF, UCLA stated that SPAN lab was Prause's site, and not on UCLA servers. That's the first time we had heard this. That's the "stolen photo's claim. A picture from a lab located in a building on UCLA's campus was used once in an article about a study published and promoted by that same school. Link to UCLA press release - http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/is-sexual-addiction-the-real-deal-247423

Due to many libelous comments posted by "this person" TED eventually closed comments under my TEDX talk. For about 2 weeks these same comments continued to be posted wherever my name appeared. From thereafter, various versions of the same comments would appear wherever I did an interview or wrote a post....including today on this thread.

EVIDENCE THAT DIRECTLY CONNECTS PRAUSE TO THESE POSTS

1) DMCA take down of her picture from YBOP & PornStudySkeptics

2) Placing a PDF on her website with all the usual claims & lies echoed in all the preceding comments.

DMCA FOR A PICTURE
Prause filed a DMCA take down of her picture from PornStudySkeptics here on July 21, 2013 - http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=1091617

Again, this was the same picture that accompanied the PT post, and the PT post was about Prause's interview on Psychology Today. It was the same picture she had on her "UCLA" website.

To summarize:
1) Dozens of comments containing libelous comments arrived a few days after we published our Prause critique.
2) Most of these comments claimed that I placed Prause's picture on a pornographic website.
3) Prause filed a DMCA take down of her picture from http://pornstudyskeptics.blogspot.com/ and YBOP.
4) Prause never contacted us about the picture.
5) These same comments (minus the picture claim) have since been posted wherever my name appears.

PDF UPLOADED TO NICOLE PRAUSE'S WEBSITE (SPAN LAB) containing similar comment as all the anonymous comments. See - http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/nicole-prauses-pdf-her-span-lab-website

More about the PDF:
Around this time a PDF was posted with those same phrases, claims, and lies on a "Documents site". The PDF also discussed Prause's study (Steele et al. 2013) with details that only she (or her coauthors) would know.

In the Fall, a PDF similar content, and deep knowledge of Prause's 2013 study, was posted on Prause's own SPAN lab website. I discovered the PDF when I went to SPAN lab to download a new study and my computer was re-directed to the PDF. This is a screen shot of the PDF that was placed on Prause's site in Fall, 2013 - http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/nicole-prauses-pdf-her-span-lab-website

We complained to UCLA, and they said SPAN lab wasn't their site, and that Prause ran it, and they had no knowledge of how it got there. The PDF was eventually removed. However, my computer continued to be redirected to various porn sites, penis mutilations, etc. whenever I clicked on SPAN lab. This has all been documented. There exists about 100 documented posts that all say the same thing as she stated in her SPAN lab PDF.

In addition, this same person has clearly shown up on YBR and r/pornfree using the exact words, phrasing, and claims that were used in the PDF placed on the SPAN lab website. Many of these posts were eventually deleted by moderators or by the person posting them.

So who is the one involved with harassment here? Please do write that chapter about me. Go ahead and name me. I have a lot of documentation that I would love to release for public consumption.

 

Nice try. You and I both know truth. Part of the story is documented above, and here - http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/nicole-prauses-pdf-her-span-lab-website
The only crime we committed was to write that analysis about the infamous Prause study (Steele et al., 2013), and your unsupported claims about it.. The fact that you have shown up on YBR, and spent hours, and dozens of posts trying to legitimize this same Prause EEG study is all we need to know.

- It's very telling that you have deleted the posts, as most were a poor attempt to attack my and Hilton's analysis. Only Prause would know such details about her stduy and the critiques of it.

- It's telling that this occurs on a thread I started to discuss a new study which contains strong evidence of porn use causing brain changes.

- It's telling that 4 usernames names are simultaneously posting identical content.

- It's telling that the phrases and words are identical to the material posted on Prause's SPAN lab.

- It's telling that none of the usernames could refute what I or Hilton, or John Johnson have stated about the study.

- It's very, very telling that many of the posts by you have been nearly identical to the anonymous comments posted on the web in the last year, and in the PDF created by Prause for her SPAN lab website.

- Only a person who had access to Prauses's SPAN lab PDF could have posted what you have posted. The only way one could do that is to either be Prause, or to be an extremely close confidant.

EDIT - Note that nearly all the comments posted by the 4 aliases have been deleted, which explains why the thread appears so disjointed. Most of the deleted comments were attempts to debate the merits of Prause's study. Others were personal attacks, and many were lies describing what I supposedly wrote in my analysis.

ADDENDUM (January 2015): Nicole Prause is no longer employed by UCLA.